


Home Is Where The Heart Is

by ShokoBean



Category: Splatoon
Genre: But we'll work through those issues later i promise, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Sort Of, Takoika, Using Salmon Run as a coping mechanism, slowburn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-17 05:08:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 26,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28594491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShokoBean/pseuds/ShokoBean
Summary: An Inkling, turned bitter and jaded by life, hiding her true feelings behind a mask. An octoling, unsure of her place in the world and of where her loyalties lie. A fateful encounter between the two of them will shake their worlds to the core and change their lifes forever, for better, or for worse.
Relationships: Inkling(s)/Octoling(s) (Splatoon)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 30





	1. Down The Rabbithole

**Author's Note:**

> First posted: 06.01.2021  
> Word Count: 1961
> 
> Welcome, and thank you for checking out this fic. If this first chapter may seem familiar, it's because I posted this months ago already, but decided to delete it until I have more of a solid buffer of chapters pre-written. This fic will, hopefully, be updated every wednesday.

Splatfests.  
A deep, integral part of Inkling culture, a festivity, to honor the wishes of the old gods. Beloved by the old and young alike, with the latter participating in the popular sport of spraying each other with colorful ink. A time of celebration and cheer among Squidkind, gleefully choosing the side that they swore loyalty to each and every month, preparing for the oncoming onslaught from the opposite teams.

Emily always forgot how much she hated them.

It wasn’t that she hated all of it. She loved partying and battling as much as the next squid! Yet as time passed, the loud, thumping beats, which in the beginning of the night always got her heart pumping with excitement, gradually transformed into a hammering headache towards the end of the night.  
The flickering, colourful lights, earlier in the night appearing beautiful, now were far too bright, hurting her strained, tired eyes. They burned as her sight blurred each time she returned from one of the battle stages that had a dimmer lighting.

Her arms hurt from wielding her weapons, her legs hurt from running, dodging, chasing. It had been quite some time since she had properly participated in ink battles. Perhaps the inkling had gotten more out of shape than she had anticipated. She usually couldn’t be bothered to train and work out anymore. Even for Splatfests she would rarely prepare, but this was the last one, and she wanted to give it her all for one last time. She glanced down at her pink Team Callie shirt.  
Then again, she could care less about who won. Sure, she liked the Squid Sisters, because who didn't? But she had never felt the need to think of one of them as superior to the other.  
She sighed, and rubbed at her aching eyes. Didn’t want to think about it too much. Didn’t want to think about how gross it was, to pit two people who had always been so close to each other against one another, and divide their entire fanbase, just for the sake of one dramatic last battle.  
Emily closed her eyes. Blocked out the lights, let the music wash over her as it pulsed through her tired, aching head.

A nudge to her side brought her attention back to the world around her, mere minutes after she settled down to rest. The squid blinked, once, twice, then lifted her head up to face the culprit. Violet eyes looked down on her with concern. Broad tentacles, which barely reached her shoulders, with a bright shade of pink that matched Emily's, framed the face of a girl, far too tall for Emily's liking.

"Milly." Emily addressed flatly, too exhausted to express emotions. "What is it?"  
"You look tired. Are you doing alright?"  
"Splatfest. You know how it is. Starts fun, but those last few battles get so tedious."  
The shorter squid pushed herself off of the wall she had been leaning on, wanting to stretch her sore body.

"You shouldn't be worried about me anyway. What about you? Are you doing okay?"  
A mischievous spark formed in Milly’s eyes, a stark contrast to her still gentle smile. "I'm quite alright, Emily. I'd like to think I'm not as fragile as you always make me out to be. I'm a big girl already, you know."  
She leaned down, looming over her friend, as if to emphasize her point. "Unlike you, short stuff."  
Before Emily could form a reply, a cough nearby made her jump.  
"Are you two done flirting anytime soon?"  
"Oh, you're just jealous, Jacob, 'cause nobody ever flirts with you.." Emily countered, sticking her tongue out. The boy rolled his eyes in response.  
"At least don't do it in front of us. Brooke doesn't want to see two weirdos she just met being all…" he made a vague hand gesture that, really, could have meant anything. "Right, Brooke?"

All eyes turned to the fourth member of their small group. A woman with her long tentacles tied into a loose ponytail, quite a bit older than the rest of them, who had joined them at some point during their Splatfest battles. The group had asked her to stay with them, as she had been a good fit to complete their team of previously three.  
Her bright golden eyes merely sparkled with amusement, the reflection of the surrounding lights making them look like they almost glowed. "Oh, I think young kids like you should enjoy yourself!"  
"C'mon, you're not that much older than us, don't act all wise." Emily scoffed.

"Okay, anyway," Jacob spoke up, before anyone could keep this conversation going, because really, it was getting tiring, "I think we have to go now, sadly. There's something we wanted to show Emily tonight. Right, Milly?" He shot the girl in question a pointed look.

Milly looked confused for a moment, before she perked up and nodded vigorously, a devious smirk spreading across her face. She eagerly grabbed Emily's hand, ready to drag her away. "Right, right! We got a surpriiiiise."  
The two were met with suspicion instead of excitement, though they had expected such a reaction.  
“You guys know I'm not a big fan of surprises.”

“You’ll like this one, promise.” Emily didn’t like the spark of mischief in both of her friends’ eyes.  
"Well, you ought to be off then, shouldn’t you? Night’s not too young anymore, after all.” Brooke grinned, ruffling through Emily's hair with one hand, only earning a scowl for it.  
“Fine, fine. We'll go. I’ll trust you two, so this better be fucking good. I could be in a very warm, very comfortable bed by now.” the girl grumbled with disdain.  
“Sleep is for losers, we're going on an adventure tonight!" Milly laughed, tugging at her friend’s hand again to coax her along. She finally relented, with an exaggerated sigh and roll of her eyes, barely managing to wave goodbye to a laughing Brooke before the three of them disappeared into the crowd.

* * *

“So it’s kinda, uh, really far out, so we can’t really walk there, and my car is still broken down,” Jacob started, evidently nervous, "so we, er, we'll have to jump. I put up some beakons on the way, it's only three, but they should get us close enough that we can walk the rest."

"Jacob."

Silence.

"Jacob, are you, of all people, suggesting we break the law by squid jumping in public?"

"No one's going to notice anyway, everyone's at the 'fest, we might as well do it-"

"I can't believe," Emily started loudly, "that all my bad influence over the years has finally paid off." She gave a fake sob of pride. "All this time has finally broken you!”

"I hate you, you know that?"  
Despite his words and dry tone, Jacob couldn't hide the amusement in his eyes and the smile twitching around his lips  
"Wouldn't have it any other way." Emily laughed.

The three of them had made quick work of their short journey across the Inkopolis night sky. Milly had quickly grabbed onto Emily, since the short inkling hadn't known where to focus on to find the beakons. With how crowded the streets were tonight, focusing on an unknown signal from a beakon somewhere in the city was hard. She quickly followed Jacob's pink streak across the sky. Neither of them took the time to catch their footing between jumps, not wanting to risk being caught after all.

By the last landing, Emily was clinging onto Milly. She only started to very slowly detach herself once she was certain they were on solid ground. The small inkling had almost forgotten why she rarely used super jumps even in battle: She despised it.  
"Not far now!" She was assured, but it did nothing to ease her queasiness.

As they stepped beneath an old, cracked and overgrown archway, their destination revealed itself to be an aged abandoned courtyard, now dominated by plant life. Mild interest shone in Emily's eyes, an urge to explore rising up in her, but she instead kept focused on the apparent task at hand and turned back to watch Jacob make his way towards a stack of old boxes and cardboard.  
“Behold!” he said, his voice monotone as ever, as he kicked aside the unstable little barrier to reveal an old, rusty grid behind it.

Silence. Emily stared. Golden eyes, seemingly molten with barely concealed anger, locked onto the two inklings that had brought her here.  
“You brought me to see a sewer.”  
“It’s not just any sewer, Emily. This one...,”

Jacob paused, his voice trailing off when he realized that, really, it sounded absolutely ridiculous. “...is special.”

Another, longer silence.

“Alright, I get it, this sounds stupid as hell. But it’s true! Probably. Milly was in there, but she didn't stay long enough to truly confirm anything for us, because she's a pussy.”  
An indignant scoff came from the tall inkling, but Jacob ignored it and kept talking before she could defend herself.  
“Anyway, we did some research and stuff, and this is probably an old path between octarian and inkling territory. Apparently it was built a little while after the war started, but we have no idea whether we built it, or the octolings. It's pretty cool though either way.” Jacob couldn’t hide his toothy grin. Emily was the history nerd among them, but even he had to admit that he was excited. Octolings were a myth to many squids their age, and here they were, standing right next to a possible forgotten passage, leading straight to them.

Emily was kneeling beside it in mere heartbeats, peering down into the darkness of the grid with a new flame ignited in her eyes. "Are you sure?! Jacob, that’s amazing! How the hell did you two find this?”

Milly was the one to answer. “I happened to stumble across an article talking about these old parts of the city, and I decided it was worth a read. I had hoped there might be some stuff here worthwhile for exploring, or at least a place to do some training in peace. Did some more research, and then a few sites mentioned old mysterious paths that no one knew where they lead to, but that they'd been sealed off. Me and Jacob decided to have a look around, and, well, here we are."  
“We were here for hours, and Milly just refused to give up, and it was a whole damn ordeal.”  
“But we found it, and that’s what really matters in the end!"

“I wanna go in.”

Both squids stopped their bickering to turn to their friend, whose gaze was entirely focused onto the grid.  
Her path into a completely different world, her own personal rabbit hole.

Jacob and Milly shared a glance. Neither of them was truly surprised, but they'd thought she would at least wait for daylight. "Are you sure about this, Emily? I was in there for a bit. Place is creepy, if you ask me. Pretty empty. Might be abandoned for all we know." Milly explained. "And I'm not too keen on going back in the middle of the night." She added on with narrowed eyes.  
"I'll be in and out, checking things out. Just give me half an hour alright? And if I'm not back by then, I give you permission to raise hell."  
"Fine, but we will come in and drag you out by your tentacles if you get in trouble." Milly said with a shrug, feigning nonchalance.  
“Fine by me.”  
With that, Emily hopped towards the grid, letting her form shift mid-air. Her body, now small and covered in ink, slipped through the grid effortlessly and was immediately swallowed by the darkness below.

Truly, tonight would be an adventure.


	2. First Impressions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Word count: 2428  
> First posted: 13.01.2021

Metal creaked and groaned around in protest around Emily's body, as it rushed through the old pipe, straight into the unknown. Clearly, it didn't appreciate being disturbed from its rusty rest, even after Milly had used it not too long ago.

The journey seemed to stretch out endlessly, despite merely being a minute or two. Perhaps it was due to the adrenaline pumping through her, fueled by the ever present threat of the pipe falling apart around her, which would result in her helplessly tumbling into the void below.Thankfully, she arrived at the other side unharmed, if you didn’t count landing face first, after having been violently ejected from the pipe. She groaned, skin scratched up, dirt now covering her clothes. Emily rose, trying to clean herself of most of it, huffing in annoyance at the burning scratches on her knees. Had she known where tonight was going to lead her, she wouldn’t have worn shorts. 

Once she appeared somewhat presentable again, her attention diverted to the place she had ended up in, taking in her surroundings with keen interest.

The tiles she was standing on were old and cracked, weeds and grass having claimed most of them. Even a few trees had managed to break through the surface, their roots lifting up what was left of the stone. In the distance, giant stone formations seemed to lazily float in the air. Emily recalled reading that it was something to do with octoling's advanced technology.

Well, there was nowhere to go but forward. Except, of course, back through the pipe, but what kind of loser would do that?

Perhaps the same loser that was smart enough not to jump into hostile territory in the first place. 

Ignoring her own nagging thoughts, she began her venture into the territory. She almost felt guilty, looking around, like she was a sightseeing tourist. As if this wasn't an incomprehensibly big part of history. Perhaps, she realised, she was the first inkling in a hundred years to set foot in this place.

The thought made her stomach churn as she rounded a corner. Really, she wasn't supposed to be here. Or maybe it was just fear, finally leaking through the nonchalant facade that she kept up, even for herself. Hopefully she would even remember her way back. 

There was only so much she could explore, before her friends would get worried. 

* * *

It had merely been a few minutes since she arrived, no more than ten, she was certain. Yet, that little time must have already been too much.

There was the sound of a second pair of steps. 

Following her. Trying to match her steps to conceal themselves, but they were so much heavier than her’s, it was almost laughable. Maybe Emily would have made fun of them, had her life not been on the line. 

She pretended not to notice. Kept a steady pace, idly looking around, her heart beating so fast and violently, it was only rivaled by the speed of her racing thoughts. Think quick, act quicker. Maybe she’d make it out alive if she used her brain for once. 

There was a corner coming up ahead. A plan formed in her head. A most likely bad, risky plan, but that was still better than no plan.

They were still both walking at the same pace, her pursuer making no attempt yet to chase her. Good. A few more steps, just a little further, that was all she needed.

Her eyes were locked onto the corner. Ears tuned to the steps behind her. Two more steps. No, not close enough yet. Don’t look behind you. A deep breath was the last thing she allowed herself. 

Her feet kicked off the ground as she broke into a dash for her life.

Emily wasn't good at a lot of things. She _was_ good at making an ass of herself. She _was_ good at masking her feelings and putting on a spiel for everyone. Truly, she'd probably be a natural at customer service. Had she hated herself enough to pursue a career in it, that was. 

Emily _excelled_ at being an absolute nuisance to everyone around her. She was also good at thinking on her feet. And, most importantly, she was good at being unpredictable. Those were the kind of skills that you had to pick up when you regularly picked fights that were way out of your league. Maybe it would save her this time too, if she was lucky.

Her pursuer had stumbled when she started running. Good. A few extra seconds might be all she needed. She rounded the corner, but instead of continuing to run, slammed her body flat against the wall. Every muscle inside of her tensed, ready to spring back into action in a heartbeat.

Steps were closing in. Growing louder with every awfully loud heartbeat pumping through her ears. 

The tip of their shoe came into view, and Emily sprang forward. She had miscalculated her timing, but it didn’t matter too much. The result was the same nonetheless: She slammed head first into the other person's stomach, knocking both of them over. 

They had barely hit the ground when Emily rolled off before they could recover, scrambling away, only focused on getting as much distance as possible between them.

She should have run, really. It was the smart, logical thing to do. However, Emily avidly refused to ever do the smart and logical thing in any situation, and also she really didn't want to go down in history as the person who royally fucked up the first contact between inklings and octolings in a century.

So, with a healthy dose of distance between them, she stayed put as she watched the octoling rise to their feet again. They held a hand on their stomach, hissing something that was no doubt a slur of curses. They glared at her through bright green eyes, half hidden behind long, dark violet tentacles, which curled at the tips. Emily would have no doubt noted how cute this octoling was, if it weren’t for the enraged expression on their face. Their lips pulled back into a snarl, revealing sharp fangs.

Instinctively, Emily held up her hands, hoping to somehow calm the hostile octoling down. Her mind frantically searched for the bits and pieces of octarian she'd learned throughout her research.

"Uhh, fuck, _I, not harm I mean? Please harm not?"_

The words felt foreign on her tongue, not to mention that she had most certainly mispronounced every single one of them, but it did seem to pacify the octoling somewhat.

They had stopped snarling at her, but still watched through skeptically narrowed eyes. They drew to their full height - Emily only realized now that they had been hunched over until now - revealing themselves to be much taller than the inkling. 

They observed each other from a distance, the octoling now looking carefully curious rather than hostile, which Emily took as a good thing. 

Until, without a warning, the octoling suddenly crossed the distance between them and harshly grasped at Emily’s arm, with a grip so tight that escape appeared all but impossible now.

"Your octarian is awful." They stated plainly, their inklish almost perfect, aside from the fact that they had a noticeable accent and were, in fact, speaking an awfully old dialect. Their voice also sounded very feminine. Their (her?) face began to grow into an awfully obnoxious sneer. "Though, I'm surprised you're capable of speech at all, inkling." 

"What's that supposed to mean?" It was Emily's turn to snarl. Not nearly as aggressive as the octoling had been, but hopefully still somewhat intimidating.

"Oh please, you and your kind are barely above animals. Feral creatures that attack anything on sight." She cocked her head thoughtfully. "Though you seem to possess at least some intelligence. Then again, waltzing right into enemy territory doesn’t speak for you. I have to admit, you beasts really are unpredictable. Doesn’t change the fact that you-”

The rest of her words were cut off, as the ground under the octolings feet suddenly disappeared and the world turned upside down. She landed on her back, wind entirely knocked out of her lungs. Before she could react at all, she felt pressure on her body. The inkling had placed her knee across the soldiers chest, putting every bit of her body weight onto it. The octoling’s wrists were pinned to the side, sharp claws holding them to the ground. Not quite enough to break skin, but definitely enough to leave marks later.

All of that felt benign when she looked up at the inkling. There was a wild look on her face, a grimace between a snarl and a wild grin. Golden eyes seemed to glow eerily, two sparks that rapidly grew into blazes. The full moon illuminated her from behind, giving the whole scene an almost unearthly feeling.

"Nothing more than a feral animal you say, huh? Yeah, sure, I can give you that, if that's all you want to see in us."

The octoling swallowed heavily, as she stared her own demise in the eyes. She certainly hadn’t expected the encounter to go like this. Hadn’t expected to end up at the mercy of a creature she had always looked down on, now looked down upon by the creature itself. Perhaps she could still beg for her life, or at least it would be merciful to give her a quick end. 

Her train of thoughts stopped when she felt the creature above her shake. Its head was lowered now, hiding the blazing eyes behind it’s messy tentacles. 

And then it _laughed._

At first the octoling thought she was being mocked. Was this creature really so cruel to laugh at her in her final moments? Yet there was no malice to its voice, and it actually moved off of her. It sat on the ground as it held its stomach, laughter still shaking its entire scrawny body. 

The octoling quickly scooted backwards, away from this obviously crazed being. Those depictions of inklings as feral beasts seemed to be true after all, even if this one didn’t seem to agree. 

“Y-you should have seen your face! You looked like you were about to _piss_ yourself! Did you actually think I was gonna kill you?! Fucking hell, that’s _hilarious_!”

It cackled. It really was mocking her! How dare this, this, _animal_ , this _beast_!

The inkling had calmed down a little, stifling snickers as it got up. It caught the octolings eyes. 

“Oh, don’t you look at me like that! You started it! I was getting tired of your whole spiel! ‘You’re all just animals.’ Uh, _duh_ , we all are animals, you know that right?” It giggled again, thoroughly amused . The octoling really could make so sense of this inkling.

Suddenly, it held out its hand, an offering to help her up. The octoling stared at it, perplexed, and incredibly confused by her opponent's behaviour. First it threatened to kill her, then it laughed at her, and now it was trying to help her? Just what was going on with this gi- _creature_. She didn’t want to humanize it! 

Nonetheless, she slowly, skeptically took its hand, stumbling a little as she was pulled up with surprising strength.

“So,” the inkling started after it had dusted itself off, “anyway. I’m Emily. Nice to meet you. What’s your name?”

She stared at - it? her? She knew the inklings name now, it was much harder now not to see her as a person - incredulously. 

“Why on earth would I tell you?! It’s none of your business! Who knows what you’ll do with that information!”

"Hey, come on! I told you mine! It's only fair!"

"You volunteered that information! I didn't want to know it in the first place! This is just your foul attempt at manipulating me, inkling!" 

The inkling seemed… surprisingly thoughtful at her words. "Hm, I suppose you're not wrong there. You have no obligation to tell me. I guess I need to work on my evil inkling tactics!" She giggled again, and the soldier wasn't sure anymore if she was being mocked or if the inkling truly did find their encounter so amusing.

"Do you… have any sense for… self preservation?"

"Not really, no."

"Ah. I guess that… makes sense. Are all inklings like you?"

"Hm? Hard to tell, I don’t spend a lot of time with most of them. I do believe most Inklings would still be smart enough to not walk straight into octoling territory." Emily snickered at herself.

The octoling didn't even realize that she was starting to let her guard down, so distracted by this peculiar girl.

"You're… very strange." 

"Thanks, I get that often."

And then Emily sighed, her shoulders slackened, almost as if a mask fell off her face. 

Now she just looked tired. "Okay, serious now. I have no idea how to get out of here. I kinda lost my way when you were following me, and my friends will get worried and start looking for me soon. And then you'll have even more inklings running around this place. So I think it's in both of our best interest if you help me get out of here."

The octoling unfortunately had to agree that she was right.

"Right. Follow me. I saw where you came out of." 

Emily followed, chattering away about nothing, seemingly more to fill the silence than to actually hold a conversation. Which was far more apparent when the octoling realized they were suddenly enveloped in silence.

"Are you alright? Not that I care, it would just be a pain for me to get you out of here if you just collapsed." 

Emily snorted in amusement, and the octoling had to bite her lip to hide her own smile.

"I'm fine, just tired. It’s just been… a really long day."

They continued on in silence for a bit.

"Fern."

"What?"

"My name. Is Fern." 

Emily stared at her for a second before smiling. "Because your tentacles curl up like fern leaves, yes?. Very cute."

"It's not-"

"Well, it’s nice to meet you, Fern."

They had arrived at the entrance to the octarian territory.

Emily turned to Fern once more, a playful smile on her lips but a thoughtful look to her eyes.

"I do hope this isn't the last time. It truly was a pleasure to meet you, Fern." 

She did not give the octoling a chance to reply before hopping onto the grid, changing her form and letting her body plummet into the depths below. 


	3. Oh what a night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Word count: 2301  
> First posted: 20.01.2020

“Calm down already, she’ll be fine.”

Milly rolled her eyes at the boy pacing across the courtyard. She had been observing him from her seat atop one of the wooden boxes that littered the place. He’d been walking in circles for over ten minutes now, hands twitching and fidgeting endlessly. It was tiring to watch for her. Emily hadn’t returned from her little escapade yet, leading to Jacob now freaking out. 

Of course, Milly was starting to get concerned too. She just preferred not to show it. Jacob was already nervous enough for the both of them together.

“Why the hell did I let her go down there? Why did _we_ let her go down there?! She’s gonna get herself killed! You know how she is! She could be dead by now and we’d never know! We have to go after her soon, I hope it’s not too late yet…”

“Jacob, chill out. It’s Emily. She can get out of any shit she gets herself into, you know that.”

“Can she get out of this? All on her own? You don’t know what’s happening down there!”

“Well, maybe there’s nothing happening at all! I told you the place is all abandoned! We don’t even know for sure it’s an octoling place!”

“And if it is? Gods, we never should have told her. We never even should have looked for this place!”

Milly growled in frustrations as she slipped down from atop her throne, closing the distance between her and Jacob in a few large strides. She grabbed his shoulders harshly, forcing him to stop. He looked up at her, eyes filled with panic, but also anger, perhaps at her, perhaps at himself. Milly couldn’t find it in herself to care.

“Listen. Emily will be _fine_ . It’s _Emily_. She can fight her own fights. You know she’ll get mad if you try to go in after her, even if it’s been thirty minutes. You know she hates it when we worry. Just give her some time, you know how she gets. Probably nerding out about something she found and just lost the time.”

The boy was silent for a while, staring up defiantly. Then a thought distracted him briefly. “How long has it been, anyway? Have you checked the time?”

They both sprung apart, immediately fumbling to pull out their phones, Milly being first to succeed.

Oh. Oops

“It’s been, uh, 40 minutes.”

“ _40 minutes?!”_

“Jacob-”

“No! Shut up! You just distract me! We _have_ to go in!”

He stepped away from the tall squid, briskly walking towards the grid in the ground. He hesitated right before it. Below him, the darkness seemed like a gaping maw, waiting eagerly to swallow him. He swallowed thickly, but took another step forward.

“Wait! I’ll go first!” Milly called from behind him, following quickly.

“No. You’ll stay here. We don’t all need to go missing tonight.”

“More reason for me to go! You’ll be missed. I won’t.” She put on a nonchalant smirk. “Nevermind the fact that out of the two of us, I’m more likely to come out alive anyway.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?!”

“Jacob, look at you, then look at me. Which one of us do you think would get out of a fight with an octoling victorious?” 

He stared at her for a moment, mouth agape, eyes full of disbelief, face flushed blue with anger. “Are you serious? You’re taking this as a moment to pick a fight?”

“I’m not picking a fight, I’m stating the obvious. _You_ are the one seeing a fight. Insecure much?”

Really, this whole spiel was just a distraction, as Milly inched closer to the grid. No way in hell was she going to let him go down there alone. Emily, she trusted to take care of herself, but Jacob just wasn't cut out for this sorta thing.

“Besides, you’re the smart one. If both me and Emily are screwed, you’d have the best chances to get us out on your own. So really, it’s-” she paused, tilting her head, ears twitching. 

“D’you hear that?”

“What? No! I don’t hear anything! Stop trying to distract me Milly, I’m going i-”

His words were hashly cut off by a blur of pink ink shooting out from beneath the grid, hitting Jacob square in the chest. He gasped for air, holding onto the pink, inky creature that had knocked the air out of his lungs. It wiggled, quickly revealing itself to be Emily’s small squid form. 

“Ugh… these pipes will take some getting used to…” the squid blubbered, shaking her head.

“Heya, Em, good to see ya back, alive and well. Jacob was already freaking out about you being dead.”

The small girl rolled her eyes, throwing an annoyed glance upwards at the boy, who had somewhat recovered from the attack and now just looked embarrassed. 

“You were gone for a while…”

"But I am fine, as you can see. Worst I got is my scraped knees when I first landed on the other side. I don’t know if these things are supposed to shoot you out of there like a cannonball.”

The inkling hoped of her perch on Jacobs arms, quickly shifting back into her humanoid form. Milly regarded her with careful curiosity, trying once again to feign nonchalance. “So, how was it? Saw any octos? Fought anyone to the death? Maybe checked out the technology?”

Emily shook her head, a tired sigh escaping her. “It was fine. Nothing much. I’ll tell you about it tomorrow, alright? For now, I just wanna get home.”

The taller girl shrugged, although disappointed, and already set off on their journey back. 

“Well time to go then, the beakons are broken now, so we’ll have a long walk.”

She graciously ignored the collective groan echoing behind her.

  
  


By the time the three finally arrived at Milly and Jacobs' shared apartment, morning was already breaking out over Inkopolis. There wasn’t an inkling in sight around the streets, each and every single one of them by now comfortable in their bed, to charge new energy for the next night's festivities.

The three flocked into the place, Milly immediately beelining for her room while Jacob at least took the time to grab a pillow and blanket for Emily.

The girl, meanwhile, was busy fussing over her friend's pet sea slug, who absolutely adored the attention.

“Heeeey, Cinnamon! How’s my favourite lil girl, huh? Are you being a good girl, yes? Yes you are, I bet you are, right, little cutie?”

“She’s just as much of a spoiled brat as you are Emily, so it never surprises me that you two get along so well.” 

A pout came across Emily’s face, but before she could even try to defend herself, a pillow hit her square in the face. It dropped to the ground with a soft ‘pomf’, making Cinnamon jump to the side to avoid getting hit. When Emily removed the pillow from her face, she just managed to catch the last glimpse of Jacob’s shit-eating grin. She grumbled, throwing the pillow onto the couch, where the boy was placing the large blanket they kept for their sleepovers. 

He already turned to leave towards his room, then hesitated, looking back at Emily over his shoulder. 

“Are you really alright? You've... just been quiet, since you came out of that place. Did really nothing happen?”

“I’m just tired, Jacob, I promise. I’ll tell you all about what happened tomorrow, okay?” 

Jacob nodded, seemingly satisfied with that answer.

“Okay. Good night then. Sleep well, Em.”

“You too.”

* * *

Emily was the first to wake up among them. The sun shone terribly bright from its place high up in the sky, and Emily assumed that it must have been quite late in the day already. She couldn’t check the time, as her phone was on the table, and the heavy sea slug sleeping on top of her made it almost impossible to move. The inkling sighed, resigned to her fate. She reached up to softly pet the creature, earning a pleased sigh from it. 

Alone and with nothing to distract herself, Emily was left with nothing but her own thoughts. She thought back to last night. The splatfest had been intense so far, each side fighting harder than she had ever witnessed before. Not that she was surprised, considering the stakes. The last Fest and both sides really wanted their idol to win.

It still left an unpleasant feeling in her stomach, but she decided not to linger on these thoughts. 

Brooke briefly came to her mind. The older inkling had seemed quite nice, even if she acted like she was way older than the rest. A few years, at best, but not much. Still, she had made for pleasant company for the night, complimenting their team nicely with her skills.

She had mentioned that she used to participate in Ranked matches, but had stopped a while ago. Emily chuckled at how similar of a story that was to her and the rest of the team. 

Both her and Jacob had worried that Milly wouldn’t enjoy the night, despite her being the one to suggest their participation in the first place. Their worries seemed to have been for nothing it seemed, the taller girl going into the battles with a vigor Emily hadn’t seen in her in… _years_ , it had to be.

Finally, her mind wandered back to Fern. The realisation of what had actually occurred was only now truly settling in. Gods, she could have died. It made her wonder why Fern had bothered to follow her, instead of simply attacking her. Emily wouldn’t have had a chance. 

Well, whatever the reason was, Emily was grateful to still be alive. She hummed idly to herself, thoughts fully occupied by the octoling girl. Now that she wasn’t in a life threatening situation anymore, she couldn’t help but think that the girl had been _very_ pretty. Jacob would probably hit her if she admitted out loud, saying something like “ _You almost died and all you can think about again is getting into a hot girls pants?!”_

Well, what was Emily supposed to do? She was just so weak for cute girls.

Her thoughts were interrupted by shuffling steps, mere moments before Jacob sleepily stumbled into her field of view. His tentacles were messy, freed from the usual ponytail he kept them in. Instead of last night’s bright pink, they had taken on a deep purple colour. 

“Mornin’.” he mumbled, voice still low and rough from sleep. He rubbed at his eyes, blinked, and grinned lazily at seeing Emily’s position. 

“That’s why we close the door at night.”

“Because you are cruel owners who don’t love their pet?”

Jacob chuckled, rolling his eyes before making his way to the kitchen.

“Hey, you’re not even gonna help me?!”

“Wouldn’t want to be a cruel owner who disturbs his poor pets sleep.”

Their bickering continued for a while as Jacob prepared a simple breakfast of mostly scrambled eggs. Both quieted down when they heard another set of loud, shambling steps, shortly after revealing a very tired looking Milly. 

Her squinting, scrutinizing gaze first fell on Emily, then Jacob, the silence only broken by the sizzling of the eggs. 

“Y’all too loud.” she murmured gruffly, voice scratching and not nearly as intimidating as she looked. With a huff, the inkling flopped onto their armchair, sinking into the cushy material, looking ready to fall back asleep.

Instead, she lazily fixed her gaze onto Emily, curiosity gleaming in her eyes.

“So, about yesterday. How was it?”

“Well,” Emily started, shifting slightly and earning a grumble from the slug, “there’s not much to it, really. As you said, most of the place is abandoned, although there is still some old tech lying around it seems. And it’s definitely octarian territory.

“Oh?” Milly tilted her head. “How d’you know that so certainly?”

“‘Cause I got into a lil scuffle with one.”

“You _WHAT?!_ ” 

Jacob came storming in from the kitchen area, spatula still in hand. His eyes were wide, filled with panic. “You met an _octoling?!_ You _fought_ an octoling?! And you didn’t say anything? You could have died! How did you even get out of that?!”

“Well, like I said it was just a lil scuffle. We ended up talking, and she led me out of there, and it was all fine, really! You’re making it way too big of a deal, Jacob.”

The boy was already pacing through the room again, holding his head in hands. 

“Good gods, you met an octoling. They’re actually fucking down there. Do we tell anyone about this? Do we just leave it like that? What the fuck do we do?”

“Sit down, Jacob. We won’t do anything. If they wanted to attack us, they probably would have done so long ago.”

“And what if something does happen?”

“Then you can blame me for all of it.” Emily tilted her head back, sniffing the air. “Also, I think our breakfast is burning.”

Jacob yelped and dashed back into the kitchen to salvage what he could, his previous panic now forgotten. 

Emily watched him go, sighing to herself. She knew that this wasn’t the last time Jacob would scold her for her recklessness last night, but for now she couldn’t be bothered to worry about it. She glanced over at Milly, who was merely observing her curiously. 

“You sure this isn’t gonna bring any trouble?”

“I’m sure.” Emily lied.

“Good. I’ll trust your judgement.”

“Aw Milly, you should know better than that.”

Milly didn’t respond at first, getting up stretch instead. “Maybe I should,” she finally replied, before grabbing the large, colourful slug off of Emily, “but I don’t. Now come on, let’s go and see what Jacob left as edible.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one ain't it chief, I apologise that this one is kinda rushed and unpolished. Next chapter will be better.


	4. First lesson

Emily’s second landing in Octo Canyon was quite a bit more graceful than her first, hitting the ground on her solid two feet instead of landing face first again.

A quick look around told her that she was alone, at least, in the immediate area. 

Then again, that’s what she had thought as well before Fern had followed her. 

At least this time, she was far more prepared, wielding a simple splattershot, an ink tank and a few simple beakons she could place to leave quickly, if things got dangerous. The weapon wasn’t there to be used for fighting rather than mobility. Getting around this place without any ink had been a pain last time. 

The octarian territory looked quite different in daylight as she walked along, old overgrown paths now visible that were hidden in the dark before. One of them seemed to lead towards an obstacle course in the distance, perhaps an old training place for the octarians, Emily mused, and the inkling decided to follow the path. 

She noted a bit of a path among the overgrowth, wondering if anyone ever still came here. Perhaps Fern did? Emily had wondered why the girl had been hanging around here, considering the rest of the area seemed to have been abandoned a long time ago. 

As she reached the course, she took note that it still seemed to be in unusually good shape, so someone must have been taking care of it.

As she looked the course up and down, her temptation proved too hard to resist. The inkling shrugged off her ink tank and threw her weapon to the ground. She didn’t need ink to get through here, hopefully. During the last splatfest she had realised that she had gotten out of shape quite a bit, but certainly, five years of training wouldn’t just disappear like that!

She rubbed her hands together, bounced from one feet to the other a few times, and then catapulted herself forward with a burst of energy. Leap up the first, second, third wall, then for the fourth, which she just managed to grasp, scrambling to pull herself up. Next up was the sort of climbing walls they had in Musselforge Fitness. Maybe she should pay that place a visit soon, considering that she was already starting to feel out of breath. Nonetheless, she began to scale it, slower than she may have liked.

While she was often reckless, she didn’t really want to risk injuring herself without any way of somebody finding her. Perhaps she should have mentioned to Jacob and Milly that she was going here… Ah well, too late now!

She reached the top of the wall, sprinted forwards with a few steps, only to find herself in front of a slope that she promptly half slid, half rolled down, coming to a stop at the very bottom of it, face down and now covered in scraps and dirt. With a quiet groan she sat up, rubbing at her sore limbs. 

“Silly squid, you know you should leave that athletic shit to Milly.” she quietly scolded herself, rising to her feet. So much for being more ‘graceful’ this time. 

“Having fun?”

Emily yelped, whirling around to find Fern, crouching above her on one of the platforms scattered around, an amused look on her face.

“You! What are you doing here?! Why didn’t you say you were here before I made an idiot of myself?!”

“Why am I here? Have you forgotten where you are?” the octolings' words were mocking, but there was no malice to her tone. “And you looked like you were enjoying yourself, I didn’t want to bother you.”

“Well I was enjoying myself, until I ate dirt just now.” 

Emily cocked her head. “Still, shouldn’t you try to be chasing me out, or capturing me, or something like that?”

“You think I’d do that, and yet you still come here?”

“I thought you already knew that Inklings aren’t very smart.”

“Well, you’re not wrong with that… Anyway, I tried to chase you out last time, and you know how that went. The Octarians are not interested in a fight with the Inklings anymore, so capturing would bring more trouble than good.”

Fern made a wide motion to the area around them. “No one comes here anymore anyway, except for me sometimes, so it’s not like you could do any real harm.”

Emily looked thoughtful at her words, humming to herself. 

“Whaddya mean you aren’t looking for a fight with the Inklings _anymore_?”

“Well, after everything that happened with Agent 3, the Octarians kind of decided that it wasn’t worth the fight, if Inklings are that strong.”

“Who the hell is Agent 3?”

Fern stared at her like she’d grown a second head. “You don’t know Agent 3? How can you not know her?! She’s the one who took the Great Zapfish back for the inklings, after we stole it a year ago!”

“Ohhhh, so _that’s_ what happened to it? All we knew is that it disappeared and then showed up again after a while, and no one thought too much about it. Even a fish needs some time off, y’know?”

Fern was still staring at her, mouth agape. “You… you Inklings are impossible. What is _wrong_ with you all?!”   
“A lot, probably.” 

Fern groaned, holding her head like she was in pain. “I can’t believe this… You don’t even know about Agent 3… What about Agent 1 and 2?! You don’t know them either?! Their song?!”  
“Can’t say that I have any idea what you’re talking about, Fern.”

“By the gods… I just don’t know what to make of you.”

“Don’t make anything of me then. Personally, I don’t think you have to understand everything in life.”

Fern looked at her for a moment longer, sighed, and shook her head. “You inklings…” 

Then, she let her eyes wander over the obstacle course. “You did quite well on this, I gotta say. In all honesty, I was surprised.”

Emily seemed to perk up at that, grinning mischievously. “Oh, you haven’t seen anything yet! You should have seen me during my turfing days, me and my team were unstoppable! We were some of the top players at the time, everyone wanted to play with us and against us, no one had a chance!” 

There was a spark to her eyes, a similar fire ignited in them to the one Fern saw during their first meeting, but this one was a roaring fire of passion rather than the raging fire from that night.

Yet it died as quickly as it started, as Emily averted her eyes, sheepishly scratching her head. “That’s over now, though. We got other stuff to do, busy with work, busy with life, y’know, adult stuff.”

The way Emily stared wistfully into the distance made Fern wonder if that was really all there was to it. There was something akin to guilt in her eyes. If Emily really was so busy with adult stuff, she shouldn’t have time to play around in Octo Valley after all. 

“Perhaps,” Fern started, without even realising she was talking, “you could show this Turf War to me, if you’d like to? You sound like you had a lot of fun with it.”

Emily immediately seemed to radiate with a smile, perked up and fire ignited once more “Yes! Yes absolutely! If you know a good spot, I could show you! It’ll be fun, I promise!” 

As she watched Emily excitedly bounce towards her abandoned gear, Fern briefly wondered what she had gotten herself into now. 

* * *

  
  


Fern laid on her back, gasping for air. The area around her was covered in ink, both her own purple and the bright yellow color that Emily had taken on. 

“Pink and purple will be hard to distinguish.” the inkling had said. Watching the colour ripple through her tentacles, shifting to a completely different colour was fascinating to the octoling. Of course, they were capable of it just as well, but there was rarely space for individuality among them. 

The girl was sitting next to her, panting heavily, but still looking better off than Fern herself. A bright, wild grin was on her face. “You’re not bad for a first timer! Though I guess I’m also still very out of practice. Especially with the splattershot.” She sighed deeply, trying to calm her body from the rush of battle. Her golden eyes were almost glowing. Fern thought it looked kinda pretty. Their eyes met. 

“Whatcha looking at?” Emily smirked. She grasped at one of her tentacles, still coloured in that bright yellow. “Hey, ya think that colour suits me?”

Fern observed her for a few heartbeats, humming to herself. 

“It looks pretty on you. But, I think pink still suits you better.” 

Emily’s smile seemed to falter, just the smallest bit, before she caught herself. “Yeah, I guess so. ‘s what everyone always tells me, pink looks best.”

She looked off into the distance and sighed dramatically. “Maybe I’m just not a yellow kinda gal.”

For some reason that was far beyond her, Fern felt like she said the wrong thing. She opened her mouth, hoping to fix whatever mess she just caused, only to be interrupted by Emily getting up, surveilling the area around them. 

“Huh, looks pretty even,” she hummed to herself, “too bad we don’t have the damn cat around. Wonder how he always knows who won…” she muttered absentmindedly.

“Cat?”

“Huh? Oh yeah, you wouldn’t know Judd! He’s this furry lil’ dude, I’ll show you a picture of him next time I’m around.”

“That sounds ni- Wait, next time? You’re planning to come here again?”

“I mean, you said it yourself that no one comes around here, right? There’s still a lot of stuff around here I’d like to explore. Maybe catch up on some training here in private, but I’ll probably be too lazy for that.” 

A mischievous grin played around the inklings lips as she looked at Fern, leaning against a broken wall. “Besides, you said you’re here, and I wouldn’t mind spending more with you.~”

Fern felt her face heat up, speechless at the inkling's boldness. 

Thankfully she didn’t have to respond, as the girl simply continued as if she hadn’t said anything. 

“Anyway, think it’s time to pack up for today. Thanks for playing with me though!”

Her grin had turned into a smile, the most genuine expression that Fern had seen on her so far.

"I think I didn’t have a good time like this in a while. So, yeah, thanks a lot.”

“I… wouldn’t mind doing it again.” Fern admitted quietly. “I enjoyed the time today, too. Just… don’t get caught by anyone else when you come here, or we’ll _both_ be in trouble.”

“Hah! No one catches this little shark!” Emily declared proudly as she pointed at herself.

“I caught you the first time you came here.”

“That doesn’t count! I wasn’t in top shape! You had the advantage that I was tired!”

The inkling huffed, but a smile still played around her lips. She had picked up her weapon again from where she had discarded it after the fight, and quickly stretched her sore body.

“Well then, Fern, I’ll see ya around. Maybe you’ll even beat me next time!”

With that, the inkling waved, and just like their first meeting, she was gone before Fern could reply. The octoling could only watch the small shape of yellow jump off and soar through the sky, left behind with more questions on her mind than ever before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I cannot wait to get the next few chapters done so we can finally get into the real fun parts of the story


	5. Playing with Fire

Ever since Octavio had fallen, the old parts of the Valley had felt more of a home to Fern than her own personal quarters, or the actually inhabited parts of the octarian territory. Fern still remembered the time she trained here, the daily routines of training and fighting and learning. She wasn’t even sure why this area had been abandoned. If the octarians had needed territory so badly that they were preparing to take it from the inklings by force, why would they just leave behind a perfectly fine space like this?

It was a mystery to the octoling, and perhaps it always would be. At least she could be alone in this place, idle in her thoughts. Which recently would always linger on the strange inkling she had met here. Emily was such a strange girl to her, an even bigger mystery than the valley, except this was a mystery she wanted to solve. It had been about two months since their first meeting, and the inkling had paid her many visits since then. Fern had caught herself wandering this place mindlessly far more often, though she refused to admit that it was in hopes of seeing Emily again.

Emily was like a window into a world she had only heard about in stories and books, a world she had longed to see ever since the night of the octarians’ fall. Of course she remembered the legendary performance of Agent 1 and 2, or the Sea Sirens as they had become known in hushed whispers among her kind. 

A melody she heard in her dreams, that she found herself humming when her mind wandered, that filled her head with wonders and longing. She knew there were many ways throughout the octarian lands that led to the surface, and she certainly knew that she wouldn’t be the first to take the risk of leaving, would she ever do so. 

How many times had she found herself in front of them, almost able to hear that heavenly melody calling her from the surface, tempting her, whispering to her to take the plunge and go. 

Yet she never did. The fear of the unknown was too great. She didn’t know what to expect on the other side, didn’t know how to behave among inklings, hell, she would surely be caught immediately!

No, no, the valley was safe. It was home. That’s what she told herself. This was where she belonged, where she was supposed to be. Even if each of Emily’s visits made the nagging voices of doubt inside of her grow louder, every wonder Emily told her about making the longing to see it for herself grow stronger, even if every game of this Turf War she played with Emily made her long to see it in action. 

Emily was  _ passionate _ . She was passionate to learn about octarians, she was passionate to learn the language, she was passionate to teach Fern about Inkopolis. But most of all, she was passionate about the ink sports. There was a flame in her eyes whenever she would describe the matches, the excitement, the feeling of unity between your teammates when you went out on the fields. Emily burned like a fire, a flame that was impossible to douse, bright and so hot that Fern was afraid she would burn herself, yet couldn’t help herself wanting to get closer.

Fern shook her head. She had gotten caught up in her thoughts of the small squid again. A glance towards the sky told her that it was late afternoon. She knew it was time to head back to the headquarters, unless she wanted to be scolded for her aimless wandering and daydreaming. The octarian society’s strict structure had crumbled without their leader, leaving them desperate to rebuild it, with little to no success. More and more octolings went off on their own whims, doing as they pleased, rebelling against everyone who tried to assert any kind of authority. 

Fern had been told that, as a former elite soldier, she should do her best to set an example for the commoners, but it wasn’t like there was a point to it. Their roles of power had been eliminated. Elite, commoner, rank no longer meant anything in their society. Perhaps that was a good thing. Perhaps she should be happy, that she was free of expectations, free of pressure to perform, free to do whatever she pleased. It’s what allowed her to dream of an escape to the surface in the first place. 

Yet she yearned for the structure, the security they had before. She used to have a place in this world! A purpose! She had routine and ambitions, had skills and abilities to pride herself on among her kind. She still had those, but they were meaningless now. Any authority she had before was gone, and she was left to float in a fog of uncertainty. 

  
  


She trudged into the headquarters quietly, hoping that no one would pay attention to her. She knew she went out too often, stayed out too long. She knew eventually someone would question her whereabouts.

“Look who _ finally _ deemed us worthy of her presence!”

Perhaps that would be today.

Fern inhaled deeply, grit her teeth, and turned to face the soldier who had spoken to her.

“Pleasant day to you too, Iris.” 

The shorter octoling scowled deeply, short tentacles twitching with barely restrained agitation. “Don’t give me that, Fern. Dawdling around all day, like there’s nothing better to do here. We got plenty of work, in case you haven’t noticed. You’re never here, after all. You and your pack of good-for-nothings might as well defect already, it wouldn’t make a difference.”

“Me and my squad do plenty of work, Iris. I don’t see why that is any of your concern, anyway.” Fern narrowed her eyes at the other soldier, pointedly staring down at her. “It’s not like you have any authority over me, anyway. Not before, and  _ certainly _ not now. Mind your business.”

Fern briskly walked off before Iris could reply, cutting their encounter short, still able to hear the octoling’s angry ranting in the distance. She rolled her eyes, wondering not for the first time why there were still soldiers like Iris among them, who desperately clung to the old ways. 

Perhaps the Inkantation hadn't taken effect on all of them, she mused. Whatever the reason, it was exhausting to her, especially after her day of wandering and contemplating her many thoughts. It was still rather early in the day, but time had lost its meaning among octolings long ago. 

A nap was all too tempting to resist.

* * *

While Iris’ opinion meant little to Fern, she couldn’t deny that she was sort of right. She had spent most of her recent time doing nothing productive, and she knew the rest of her squad were not much better off. 

A small smile graced her lips as she made her way to their usual meeting place, an old shack, probably once used to hold weapons, now re-functioned to what was probably the closest thing an octoling would ever get to a clubhouse down here. 

She considered every member of her squad a close friend. They were a rough bunch, and Fern remembered when she was first put in charge of the three, when she was just freshly promoted to an elite. 

They hadn’t respected her in the slighted, mocked her even for the kelp that she had proudly displayed in her hair. She’d been told that they were…  _ rebellious _ . Nowadays, Fern long knew that they had merely been disillusioned with the system they lived in early on.

Still, Fern had managed to earn their respect eventually, gaining three soldiers loyal to her command, and three friends along the way as well.

The octoling had finally reached their little shack, though to her surprise, she found the area empty. Lately she had always been the last to arrive to their meet-ups, often running late from a meeting with Emily or getting too caught up in her thoughts again.

She carefully examined the area, but found no sight or signal of anyone around. Fern shrugged, pulling the door open to make herself at home, only to be greeted with an octoshot to her face. 

The girl backwards, although only a few steps, as something cold was pressed into her side. 

The soldier in front of her wore one of the old octarian masks, hiding their face, and a large hooded robe, entirely obscuring anything that Fern could use to identify them. 

“Elite soldier Fern Apel, you are hereby under arrest for treason against the octarian army. You are associating with our kind’s sworn enemy, an inkling.” 

Fern felt her blood run cold. This was it. They found out. Somebody must have seen them. She almost wanted to beg them not to hurt Emily for her foolishness, but she knew it would only make things worse for both of them.

“You will be taken into custody and immediately brought to our highest ranking soldiers for them to judge your fate-” 

The soldier paused, her lips twitching dangerously. The gun pressed against her back was shaking. 

“Wait-”

“You guys are so bad at this. Look at her face! You totally had her!” 

The octolings around her burst into laughter. Fern growled, yanking the mask off of the soldier in front of her. 

“Ivy! Juniper! Hazel! What the hell was that all about?!”

“Sorry boss, but we’ve had to watch for weeks now how you walk around that old junkyard, hoping that girl will show up, an’ then Ivy had the idea for a little bit of fun.” Juniper said, a grin on her lips and a mischievous spark in her red eyes. 

“Aye! Don’t rat me out! We were all in this!”

“No, we weren’t.” 

The two bickering octolings turned to their third companion, who was looking at them entirely unimpressed. Hazel turned to Fern instead.

“I want you to know that I had no part in setting up this plan. I was just here to… observe. Although, in all honesty,” a small grin graced her lips, “it was pretty funny to watch.”

Fern shook her head at her squad, an indignant huff escaping her. “You three are impossible.” 

Then she eyed each of them carefully, anxiety flickering in her stomach. “So you know about-”

“About your girlfriend? Yes, we do.” Ivy smiled, almost as if she was proud of Fern.

“She is  _ not _ my girlfriend. We are merely friends. Engaging in a cultural exchange.”

“That’s what you call it these days, huh?” Juniper replied, earning a light hit from Hazel.

The short octoling glared at her companion, before her eyes turned to Fern and softened.

“I’m glad you made a friend, Fern. You seem happier since you’ve met her.”

Fern felt her cheeks flush slightly, hoping the others wouldn’t notice it, or at least not comment on it.

“Is that so? I hadn’t noticed it myself. I suppose it has been rather exciting to talk to someone so…” she trailed off for a moment, looking for a good word to describe Emily. 

“...interesting.” 

She decided to ignore the collective snickering of her squad.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Squid Sisters name should be Sea Sirens instead, thanks for coming to my TED talk.


	6. The bigger picture

“Emily’s been happy lately.”

A smile played around Jacob’s lips as he looked over at Milly. The two of them were on their way home after spending the day hanging out at Emily’s apartment.

“Mhm.” came an unenthusiastic response.

“She’s just so… lively! She hasn’t been like this since-” he broke off, already regretting his words. 

“Since we stopped doing Turf War?”

“Yea…”

“She’s so stubborn. I always told her she can keep doing it, I don’t care. Just cause  _ I _ don’t want to play anymore doesn’t mean everyone else has to stop.”

“I know… She knows that, too. I think she just doesn’t want to do it alone. And it’s not like… like we weren’t stressed out too, Milly.”

The tall inkling sighed, slightly relaxing her shoulders. She hadn’t even realised how tense she had been. 

“I know. I’m sorry. I just hate seeing her so…” she made a vague hand motion, frustration visible on her face when she couldn’t find a fitting word. “ _...you know. _ ”

Jacob merely nodded in response.

“Least she’s happy right now…”

“You don’t sound very happy about that.”

“I am! I’m glad to see her doing well!” Milly quickly jumped to defend herself, glaring at Jacob. “It’s just! Why couldn’t  _ we _ do that for her! We’re her friends! We should be able to make her happy and not some, some  _ random _ octoling she met down in the fucking sewers!”

Silence rang between them for a moment, only broken by Milly’s angry huffs, and Jacob was deeply grateful that the streets around them were empty already. Milly was bad at keeping her voice down when she was agitated. The girl tried to stealthily wipe a few tears from the corner of her eyes, but Jacob didn’t miss it.

“Oh, Milly…” he said gently, touching her shoulder. He could feel the girl relax ever so slightly under his touch. “I know how you feel. It’s frustrating, to want to help someone you love, and you just… can’t. We just have to trust Emily that she can take care of herself.”

Milly scoffed. “Yea, cause that always works out great.” 

They walked in silence for a few minutes, the warm evening breeze ruffling their tentacles.

"You know, I really thought you were over that old crush by now." Jacob said slyly, a smirk on his face.

"Wh- I  _ am _ ! This has nothing to do with that! I've been over it for years now!" 

The tall inkling's face was bright blue, contrasting starkly against the yellow of her tentacles.

"And you  _ promised _ not to mention it anymore!" She whined, using a broad tentacle to hide her face behind.

Jacob laughed, patting her back apologetically, though Milly could tell he wasn't truly sorry.

Asshole.

“Anyway, I’m sure things will be alright. You said it yourself, she hates it if we worry too much, and she can get herself out of anything.”

Milly hummed in agreement, though not convinced at all. Still, she wanted to hope that Jacob was right with his faith in Emily. 

* * *

“Can I ask you a question?”

Emily’s gaze went up from the book in her lap that she had been trying her best to read. By now, it had been about three months since Emily’s first visit. Fern had started to teach her octarian, and lent her a few books to practice the language. It had made the octoling realize that it was… frighteningly hard to find books that didn’t make inklings out to be the enemy. 

“Oh sure! You can ask me anything, anytime, anywhere!” Emily replied with a bright grin. At least an excuse to give her brain a break for a bit. 

“How come you know so much about octolings, and even some of the language? You said most inklings don’t even believe that we’re real anymore.”

The smile fell from her face, and Emily shifted in her spot on the ground, hoping to buy herself time to come up with an answer. She looked off onto one of the distant islands, hoping to look nonchalant. “Oh, I just had a relative I used to be close to. He was a historian, specialised his field on The Great Turf War and octolings. He was really fascinated with all that stuff, and I guess it rubbed off on me.” Her gaze returned to the book in her lap, fiddling with the pages. She blinked angrily, having noticed that her vision was turning blurry. 

“I probably could have learned more, but, some… stuff happened, and we don’t really talk anymore.”

That was enough of a hint for Fern to not ask any further. 

With the atmosphere around them now tense, the octoling struggled to find a distraction for both of them. Her gaze fell onto the inkling’s tentacles.

“Hey, did you change your hair?”

A smile returned to Emily’s face as she put the book down once more, proudly tugging at her tentacles. They had much more of a wave to them now, and the tips reaching her shoulders were coloured a bright yellow.

“Yea! My friend, Jacob, likes to practice new styles for his work, so I usually act as his guinea pig. Do you like it?”

“I do, it looks very pretty on you. Maybe the yellow suits you better than I thought.”

Emily was positively glowing at her compliment, a faint blush spreading over cheeks, and Fern smiled at the sight, a warmth spreading in her chest.

She couldn’t help but think that she didn’t want this moment to end.

* * *

“How’s the job hunting going?”

Sheldon returned another freshly cleaned weapon back to its place on the shelf.

Milly growled, carefully cleaning the Blaster in front of her. 

“I’ll take that as bad. I’m sorry I can’t help you, but I have no more work for you here than helping with maintenance.”

The inkling sighed as her shoulders sagged. “I know. I wouldn’t want to be around here more than necessary anyway. Too much risk that someone’s gonna recognize me, and people’ll start blaming, and father will find me, and I really don’t need that.” 

She shook herself as if to rid herself of her thoughts. It reminded her again how long her hair was growing. Perhaps she should finally cut some of it off, but she just couldn’t bring herself to part with it.

Perhaps Jacob could do something fun with it, he always liked to practice new hairstyles.

“Anyway, I’ll definitely keep an ear out around here for you. Lots of customers, lots of blabbing, lots of information. I know there’ll be something for you.”

Milly smiled, though she clearly didn’t quite believe him. “I hope so. I’ve been paying my part of the rents out of the funds I still have from turfing, but there’s no way I’m going back to that. Not yet.” 

She refocused on her task at hand. “I still got some time left. There’s still money from the tournament to pay rent for a few more months.” Even though it meant that she had none for extra expenses. Taking out the neighborhood sea slugs for walks wouldn’t put much food on their table either..

“Oh well, I’m sure it will all work out fine.”

* * *

Emily looked tired. There was a large band-aid covering her left cheek. She was still chipper as usual, but her usual energy was just missing.

“Are you doing alright, Emily? You’ve not been looking well lately.”

“What? Me? Pfff, I’m fine. I started this new job recently, and it’s... really exhausting, but we all gotta make our money somehow, you know. I’ve got a good team too, so that’s a bonus.” She smiled tiredly, hoping that it would be enough to convince Fern.

“Don’t overdo yourself. I can’t imagine that your small body can handle too much.” Fern teased with a smirk. 

Emily merely shrugged in reply. Her mind briefly wandered to bloodied bandages, tattered clothes, the bleeding evening sky as she laid defeated in puddles of ink, hoping that someone would find her before it was too late. Dull pain of metal hitting her body. Crazed eyes that seemed to follow nothing but instinct and a thirst for battle.

She blinked. Rubbed her arm. She’d recently taken to wearing long-sleeved clothes. She could feel the bump of a bandage underneath the fabric. Yeah, maybe her body really couldn’t handle too much. But that had never mattered to her before, and it wouldn’t now. 

She plastered a playful, smug grin on her face, that she knew would be convincing. A carefully calculated expression. The tone of her voice measured, to hide how shaky it was. “Perhaps I should show you sometime how much my body can handle, if you keep that attitude up.”

* * *

Fern pushed open the door to her squad’s meeting spot, as always the last one to arrive. Her friends greeted her cheerfully, Juniper scooting to the side to make space on the old, worn out couch they had placed in there. It had taken them  _ days _ to find and carry the damn thing into the old shed, but at least they didn’t have to sit on the ground now. Right now though, both Hazel and Ivy were standing up, unusually grim expressions on both their faces.

Fern and Juniper glanced at each other, neither one quite sure what was going on.

“Something’s happening.” Ivy started, before either of them could ask questions.

“I don't know  _ what _ is happening, but I know it’s  _ something _ . The higher ups are planning something. They’ve been constantly pushing for us to keep up our work, and to pick up our training. They  _ say _ it’s to keep up order, or some bullshit like that, to keep us busy, everyone’s been idling around too much for too long, but I don’t fucking buy it. Something’s going on.”

“Are you sure you’re not just being paranoid? It’s not like they have any real power anymore, since Octavio’s gone. They like to pretend they can still boss us around, but their positions are meaningless now.”

Fern hummed thoughtfully as the two continued to argue, both octolings far more agitated than usual. Ivy’s tentacles were writhing around, rippling with bright colours. They were quite short, not having had much time to regrow yet. 

Something froze inside of Fern. Her gaze flickered towards Juniper’s equally short tentacles, then to Hazel, who was still standing in her corner away from the other, hands fidgeting nervously. Her tentacles were arguably the longest among them, but still pitifully short. 

Fern’s hand reached up to tug at her own tentacles. She had been ordered to get them cut within the next few days, despite the fact that they only had a few weeks to regrow. 

“Quiet.”

Her tone was stern and commanding, and the two arguing soldiers silenced, almost out of reflex. Perhaps the octolings had started to shake off their old teachings, but it would still take years to unlearn the obedient behaviour ingrained into them from birth.

Once again Fern let her gaze glide over every single soldier under her command, as if to reconfirm her realisation.

“How often have you been harvested recently?”

Juniper scowled deeply. “Every few weeks. Getting annoying. I thought that would be over now, but they got all up my ass when I let them grow for a while. I don’t know what we need that many octo troopers for anyway, they say they need them for rebuilding work, but how are they supposed to he-”

The octoling silenced mid-sentence, eyes wide. 

“Oh for fuck’s sake.” she mumbled.

“Hazel.” Fern turned her attention to the short girl. “You know something. Have you been told anything, any new projects?”

She hesitated, tentacles twitching nervously.

“Well… there have been talks recently, that some of the top engineers and researchers, I mean, _Marina_ _Ida_ level top dogs, have been gathered for something recently, and…” the octoling trailed off, fidgeting restlessly.

“And?” Fern asked, trying to hide the impatience in her voice.

“And, I was offered a position to work with them as well. They said they can’t actually tell me what it is unless I accept, because they can’t risk any leaks, so I told them that I need more time to consider first.”

A heavy silence filled the room, each member of the squad lost in their thoughts, the realisation fully settled in now. 

“You… you don’t think… they’re going to break  _ him _ out, right? That would be insane. It’s a suicide mission. The Splatoon would just capture him again and probably take it out on us afterwards!” 

Juniper’s eyes were wide, voice shaking as she looked between her squad. 

Nobody dared to answer her question.

“Whatever’s coming,” Fern said, trying to sound far more confident than she felt, “if something happens, we’ll meet here, and after that…”

She averted her eyes from the rest, fixating her gaze on the ceiling. 

“After that, I guess the only way left is up.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Booyah lads, after this one the fic is gonna pick up some pace, and I'm finally reaching my buffer for chapters I've already written, so no more last minute writing panic for now.


	7. Going Home

Emily jumped off the ship, briefly stumbling in her landing, the distance to the ground further than she was used to. The ship, which was supposed to take them back to the harbor close to the inner city, had ended up with technical difficulties, resulting in them anchoring in a harbor on the far outskirts of Inkopolis. Behind her, three more thuds sounded as the rest of the crew left the ship. 

Brooke stretched, probably sore from the ride. Revi and Cassy were bickering about something that Emily really didn’t care to listen to. Her thoughts were much more preoccupied with her surroundings. They were fairly close to the entry that Emily would always use to visit Fern. Perhaps she could check on her before she went home…

“Emily? Are you coming with us?”

Ripped from her thoughts, the inkling looked over to the rest of her crew. She knew they’d have to catch a train into the inner city. While the other two were already walking ahead, still arguing heatedly, Brooke was looking at her expectantly. Emily hesitated briefly before shaking her head.

“Well, actually, there’s a friend who lives around here. I wanna give her a visit. I’ll catch a later train, don’t worry. There’s still plenty of time.” She checked the sun, deducing that it had to be around noon right now.

“Alright. Send me a message when you get home though, okay?"

“Yes, mom.” Emily snickered mockingly. They risked their lives almost daily, at all hours of the day, for those stupid golden eggs, yet Brooke was worried about her getting home safe. It seemed so silly.

They parted ways, Brooke using a quick, and only  _ slightly _ illegal super jump to catch up to the others. You weren’t supposed to jump in public places, but it wasn’t like this place was very crowded.

Emily hummed a quiet tune to herself, a part of Ebb and Flow that had gotten stuck in her head again, as she reminisced about the times she would practice her jumping with Milly and Jacob. Competing to see who could jump the farthest, the highest, the fastest. Milly was always best at it, of course. Somehow able to sense her teammates and aim her jumps at them from ridiculously far away. Maybe it had been the years of training from her father. While he had been a piece of shit nonetheless, none of them could deny that his methods bore fruit. Milly by far exceeded her peers in many things, often seen as a prodigy among them. 

Ah, well, no time to dwell on the past.

Arriving at her goal, she cheerily skipped a few steps into the big courtyard, eyes locked onto the old, non-assuming entrance to her little secret. She checked the time. 13:37. Darn. Later than she’d thought. 

She hopped onto the grid nonetheless, shifting her body into her squid-form, and unceremoniously dropped through the rusted metal. She briefly wondered if her body retained any of the rust during her transformation, but if it was the case, that was a problem for future Emily. Everything was always a problem for future Emily. Past Emily truly was a bastard.

  
  


When she emerged from the pipe, her body tensed, nerves tingling. Something deep inside of her, maybe a primal instinct, told her that there was something bad in the atmosphere. Everything was quiet. Usually they were at least birds singing, or other animals skittering out and about, but today there was nothing. Dead silence. Emily felt her whole body bristle. Silence was  _ always _ bad in her experience. Calm before the storm. Something was wrong. 

Everything in her screamed to turn around and jump back through the pipe. Leave, and forget about Fern. Pretend nothing ever happened. Who cared anyway? There were barely friends. They barely knew each other. She didn’t have to risk her life for someone else.

A deep sigh escaped her. She couldn’t. Even if she really wanted to, she had to see if Fern was alright. 

And if she wasn’t… then there really wasn’t anything she could do, and she could make her peace with that, saying that she at least tried.

Gods damnit, she didn’t even have a fucking weapon. 

She slowly made her way through the valley. By now the way had become familiar, as opposed to her first visit. She was familiar with Fern’s signature too by now, enough to track her down on her visits. Jumping to her would possibly be too risky though, seeing as it would draw plenty of attention.

Faintly, oh so faintly she could feel her. Terribly far away. Deep inside the territory. Gods dammit. Why did she always have to get herself into these shitty situations over and over? Didn’t she deserve to live life peacefully?!

Probably not, she concluded, after a brief review of her life.

Movement caught her eye, and she pressed herself against a wall immediately, heart in her throat. She stared ahead blankly, relying on her other senses. Steps of heavy boots. Similar to Fern’s, but not Fern’s steps. Yet she felt no signal of life from them. Usually something she was only used to from ink battles, where sensing the enemy inklings was impossible thanks to the Turf War technology. So whoever was there, was probably an enemy.

The steps stopped. Slowly drew closer. Emily risked a painfully slow glance to the right. An octoling, of course. But strange. Most of their face was hidden by large shades that gave off an eerie red glow. They seemed to look for her, but then suddenly, stiffly, turned away and continued on their way. Emily barely dared to release the breath she’d been holding.

She could still turn around. Certainly Fern wouldn’t hold it against her for leaving. Surely she’d even be mad that she came here. 

But that octoling just seemed so  _ wrong _ . Like they weren’t the one controlling their body. It made her feel sick to her stomach, thinking of Fern in the same situation.

“Why are you like this, Emily.” She muttered to no one but herself and went on her way, further into the valley

The way through the valley was nerve wracking. Dodging octolings, and staying out of sight of the ones she saw in the distance. Some were wearing shades. Others… were running. Like they were being chased. Hunted. Prey in their own territory. 

It was a miracle Emily hadn’t been caught yet herself, but for some reason, they didn’t seem to take much notice of her.

Fern’s signal was growing closer,  _ fast _ , and Emily wasn’t sure whether that was a good thing. But the desperate hope fluttering in her heart made her proceed faster, more careless. She heard several octolings make noises of alarm, but none followed her. Strange. Awfully, terribly strange.

She was just ducking behind another wall, catching her breath, when Fern’s signal seemed to flare up, closing in at a rapid pace. Was that moron superjumping to her?!

She certainly was, landing in a puddle of purple mere seconds later, quickly shifting back and stumbling to her feet. The octoling grabbed Emily, eyes wide with fear.

“What are you doing here?! No matter! We need to get out!” 

She let go just as fast as she’d grabbed Emily. Her fingers clawed into what was left of her tentacles. 

They were cut off almost completely, mere stumps left, and clearly not having been cared for correctly, as they still dripped out ink and blood. Emily had learned by now that the octolings’ tentacles, unlike inklings, had nerves in them and were very much capable of feeling pain. 

Emily had no doubt that they must have hurt like hell, though that probably wasn’t their biggest problem right now.

“We need to get out, but, I need to check on my squad- they might still be out there, I can’t leave them behind! But, getting all the way to our meeting spot will be dangerous, and you don’t know the way- Hell, you shouldn’t be here! If we get caught, I- I don’t know what they’ll do to you-”

Fern looked like she was close to tears, breathing rapidly as she rattled on and on in a panic. 

“Fern. Hey. Listen. Look at me.  _ Breathe _ .” Emily had grabbed the octoling’s arm, forcing her to stop her restless pacing. Fern was looking at her, tears in her eyes, body shaking. 

“Listen. We’ll check on your squad. We will find them. We will all get out of here safely. Okay? We can do this. You just need to trust me, and I will trust you.”

There was a moment of silence between them, Fern looking down at her, before slowly nodding.

“Okay…” She took a deep, shaky breath. “Okay. I’ll lead the way. I managed to grab some seekers before I left, to get around faster…”

“Seekers? You have those?”

She examined the subweapon Fern presented her and nodded.

Without much warning she grabbed the octoling’s arm, a look of concentration on her face.

“What are you-” Fern watched in wonder as the inkling's hair color slowly darkened, taking on Fern’s own ink color instead.

“Alright, that should make this a lot easier. Let’s go.”

She motioned for Fern to take the lead, who decided not to waste anymore and immediately threw down one of her seekers to follow its ink.

A mix of seekers, conveniently placed hiding spots, super jumps and mostly luck managed to get them to an old abandoned shed that, apparently, Fern’s squad would usually use as their meeting spot. The surrounding area seemed calm and empty, but Emily didn’t trust the atmosphere. It felt all too similar to when she first entered the valley today. Perhaps it was instinct, a more primal part of her, desperate for survival. 

Too bad that survival never seemed to be a priority for Emily.

“I can’t feel any of them…” Fern muttered, voice quiet, defeated. “They’re not here…” She stepped towards the shed. Emily felt her entire body bristle. Before she could say anything, Fern pushed open the door, revealing three octolings, armored, weapons drawn, each wearing a pair of glowing shades.

“No!”

Fern stumbled back, the octoling followed. She bumped into Emily, jumped away, eyes still on her friends. 

“No! NO!”

Ferns voice was shrill, and she almost walked towards her former squad, had Emily not grabbed her immediately. 

“You gotta wake up! Please! I can’t go without you!”

“They’re gone Fern, we gotta go.” Emily dragged the octoling backwards, who resisted heavily, intent to keep up her futile attempts to rescue her friends.

“You said we’d all get out of here!”

“ _ Change of plans then! _ ” 

Emily couldn’t find it in her to feel bad for hissing at Fern, despite the octoling’s piercing look of betrayal. The inkling shifted her focus onto the octolings for now. Why weren’t they attacking? They seemed uncertain, confused, looking between each other and their two targets. 

Until three pairs of eyes locked onto Emily.

“Uh oh.”

There was no way to evade the fire of three weapons at once, no matter how good at dodging she might be, and she hissed in pain and anger as the enemy ink hit her body all over. While she had managed to dodge the bulk of it, it had still been enough that she knew she was close to getting splatted. There was no more room for mistakes at this point, no time for much thought. All she could do for now was run away, trying to think of something,  _ anything _ , to save herself. 

She had gotten some distance to Fern, the soldiers still hot on her heels. If she jumped back now, that would buy them a few minutes until the octolings caught back up. 

She leapt up on a wall, used it as leverage, jumped towards a ledge - barely made it. After scrambling to pull herself up, she waited for them to get to her, readying the jump. The second the first soldier reached her, she took off. 

She shifted back mid jump, landing on her feet next to Fern. 

“Why are they targeting  _ you _ ?” 

“No idea, but I’ve got an idea to get us out. Give me all your seekers, and then run to the exit.”

“What?! I’m not leaving you behind!”

“You’re not. Listen, just trust me, okay? We’ll both get out of here safely.”

“You said that about all of us.”

“Yeah, to calm you down! Listen, they’re coming! Do you want to get out or not?!”

Fern hesitated, but her eyes darted towards the rapidly approaching octolings, and finally, she pushed the five seekers she had left into Emily’s waiting hands. 

“Promise me you’ll be careful, and that you’ll come out of here with me.”

“I promise. Just wait at the exit, and I’ll be fine. Now go, or I’ll make sure you’ll have to worry about what I’ll do to you more than the octolings.”

She waited until she saw Fern nod and take off, before throwing down a seeker and following its line of ink.

Emily wasn’t sure for how long she ran around corners, hid in ink, followed seekers, but eventually she was certain that half the damn octarian army was following her. She hadn’t come out without damage, sporting several bruises, scrapes from hitting walls and a nasty cut on her arm from a piece of broken metal. Not to mention the many times she got hit by ink, wincing at the burning feeling on her skin. It wouldn’t leave permanent damage, but it hurt far more than ink in a turf war ever could. 

Most importantly was that she could still feel Fern’s signal. By now, she had probably played enough of a distraction for both of them to get out with much more trouble. Looking behind her at the octoling closing in, she readied her jump. It felt like forever. She was certain she could feel every heavy step of her enemies’ boots through the vibrations of the ground. She could feel another bullet make contact with her small body, but she jumped before more could hit her. Her body was catapulted forward and into the air, pushed upwards by the force of her own ink. She was airborne for a painfully long time. She honed in on Fern, her signal rapidly getting closer as Emily tumbled towards the ground. She was tired and in pain. She didn’t have the strength for a proper landing anymore. Oh well, gracelessly flopping onto the ground was acceptable too at this point.

Except she hit something soft instead of the ground, but she barely had time to register that Fern had caught her before the octoling leapt through the grid in the ground, leaving the valley behind.

* * *

They fell to the ground together, Emily still in Fern’s arms. The octoling was on her back, staring at the sky, eyes wide. Emily would check on her in a moment, she thought to herself. She just had to catch her breath. She felt so tired. Her whole body hurt. All her energy was gone, leaving only a heavy tiredness behind. 

Against her body's protest she pushed herself up and off Fern, pulling out her phone to check out the time. 

16:27. Huh. That whole ordeal hadn’t even been three hours. The sun would set soon. They had to get home. But right now she had to focus on Fern. The octoling was sitting up now, curled in on herself, staring into nothingness.

“I left them behind.”

“You had to save yourself first.”

“That was selfish.”

“Sometimes you gotta be selfish to survive, so you can be selfless later. Or... something like that.”

“I just… ran away. I should have tried to save them.”

“Would you have been able to save them?”

Emily didn’t get an answer.

“I’m sure they would have wanted you to get out safely first and foremost.”

“ _ What do you know about them _ ?!”

Emily flinched back, not expecting Fern to yell at her so suddenly.

“What do you know, huh?! You know nothing! You shouldn’t be here! You shouldn’t have come here! You don’t know anything about us! About what we’ve been through! And you think you have any right to tell me what they would have wanted?!”

Fern was up by now, voice rising with every word. She was staring down at Emily with blazing green eyes, chest heaving with rage.

“I don’t.” 

The rage on her face was quickly replaced with confusion.

“What?”

“I don’t have any right to tell you. I’m just saying it, because I would have wanted you to get out, if I was in their place. I don’t know anything about what the hell just went down. And honestly, I don’t care to know. All I know is that we’re both alive and safe right now, and that’s all that matters to me.” 

She got up, wincing at the pain and soreness in her body. 

“Look, you can yell at me all you want once we’re home, but right now, I just want to get into my bed.”

“Home?”   
“Yea, you know, the place where your heart is or whatever shit like that, or in my case, the place where my bed is. We’re going to my home. I’m not gonna leave you out on the street, you know?”

Fern looked incredibly lost. More like a scared child than the angry soldier she'd been mere minutes ago.

"I'm… really on the surface, aren't I?"

"Yep." 

She didn't say anything more, merely walked next Emily, following as the inkling led them through the maze of buildings.

"...I'm sorry."

"For what?" 

"Yelling at you. You saved me, and all I did was get angry at you."

"Fern, we just escaped a life or death situation, I'd be more concerned if you hadn't yelled at me at least a little. I can't imagine how scared you must have been."

"You're being calm though."

"Well for one, the adrenaline has worn off, I already had a shift at work today, and all in all I'm really just too tired to freak out right now. I'll do it tomorrow."

"...You're strange."

"I thought we already established that?" 

Fern only chuckled. It felt strange to already talk to Emily like everything was normal. Maybe the inkling was doing it on purpose to distract her. It worked, until new fears came to her mind.

"Wait, I can't just walk out into the open like this, can I?! Surely someone will see that I'm an octoling!"

"Oh, don't worry, they'll barely notice. Besides, I look way more suspicious than you right now."

Fern took a moment to look at Emily. Her clothes were torn, bruises were starting to show their colors on her body, and there was one particular nasty looking cut, on her right arm, but at least it seemed to have stopped bleeding.

"You look awful-"

"Thanks."

"No! I'm sorry! I just- you got hurt helping me… you risked your life to save me."

Fern looked down, unable to meet her eyes.

"I don't know how I'll ever repay you." 

"Let me use your arm on the train home as a pillow and we're even."

After a rather uneventful, but awfully long, ride into Inkopolis’ inner city, the two of them were making their way through the twisted streets of the city. The sun was already setting by now, casting long shadows and filling the city with an orange glow. Fern couldn’t help but look around in amazement at the tall buildings surrounding her. She saw inklings all around her, in all sorts of colors, wild hair styles, chatting happily, barely acknowledging her. She had to catch up to Emily several times, distractions causing her to fall behind. 

Finally the inkling stopped, rummaging in her pockets until she found a key, and entered the building she stopped next to.

“Are you alright? You’ve been really quiet.”

“Tired.” Emily merely replied.

Right. She’d been through a lot today. Emily had said that she’d worked earlier too. 

As they trudged up the flights of stairs, Fern asked: “Wait, why did you even come into the valley when you had work today? You never do that.”

“I happened to be in the area. And it was good I came, wasn’t it?” 

“I mean yes, but, still. You shouldn’t have. I- I’m very glad you did, but I also wish you hadn’t gotten into danger because of me.”

“What’s done is done. We’re here, we’re safe. Let’s just focus on that, okay?”

For the first time since they left the valley, Emily seemed to truly look at her. She really did look incredibly tired. And she was probably getting tired of Fern’s constant apologising, the octoling realized.

“Yea, you’re right, I’m sorry- I mean-” She sighed. “Thank you for everything. I’ll be quiet now.”

The door clicked, Emily had unlocked it before Fern even noticed. The inkling looked at her with a tired smile. “You’re fine. It’s been a long day for both of us, so let’s get some rest, alright?”

She beckoned the octoling to follow her inside, leading them into the small apartment. 

The center of the room seemed to function as a living room of sorts. There was a small part that seemed to be built into a small room - a small storage perhaps. Below that was a bed, sat snugly into the corner, a window right above it and a large shelf with glass doors right next to it, containing trinkets, books and other things she couldn’t quite decipher. To the left, a small step led into a kitchen area, only separated from the rest of the room by a wall.

In the middle of the room sat a large, worn-out sofa, right in front a tv that looked like it had seen better days. In the back of the room was another door, though it was closed, so Fern couldn’t see what was behind it. Music played through the whole apartment, coming from a small radio in the kitchen.

The whole thing was… surprisingly organized. Everything was placed strategically to make the most of the space, it seemed. She hadn’t quite expected that from Emily, she had to admit. The inkling seemed rather chaotic, from the few, rather brief meetings that they’d had.

“You can take the bed.”

Emily’s voice ripped her out of her thoughts.

“Where will you sleep, then?”

“The sofa, obviously.”

“But-! But this is your home, I can’t just take your bed!”

“Take the bed or we’re both sleeping on the ground, because I’m not taking it, and I’m not giving you the sofa.”

The tone of her voice left no room for arguments. Fern caved in with a sigh, not wanting to irritate the tired girl anymore than she probably already was. 

She watched with interest as Emily seemed to...examine? The sofa, and stumbled back in shock when the inkling suddenly yanked at it, making the whole thing expand much further out.

“What did you just do?!”

“I… pulled out the couch?”

“H- How? What’s this kind of technology?!”

Emily stared at her like Fern had grown a second head.

“You guys have floating rocks.”

“Yea, but we don’t have sofas that turn into beds!”

The inkling stared for a moment longer before giggling to herself. “Yea, I guess you don’t.”

She walked over to the room behind the bed, opened the door and pulled out a blanket and a pillow. It really was a storage area then.

“That’s pretty low tech, if you ask me. If you get this excited over a pull-out couch, I can’t wait to see what you’ll think of the rest of Inkopolis.”

She all but threw herself onto the couch, not even bothering to change her clothes anymore. All she wanted to do was sleep. Her limbs felt heavy as she pulled the blanket over her battered body.

“Will you be okay, Fern?” She managed to say, already drifting off. She was certain her words were slurred from drowsiness.

“I’ll be fine. Get as much rest as you need.”

“Will do. Oh yea,” she jutted out her arm towards the door in the back, “bathroom’s that way. G’night.”

Emily was out before Fern could even respond. The inkling was almost completely hidden under the blanket, small body curled up underneath. The octoling sighed, quietly making her way to the bed. She should probably try to rest too. 

Her tentacles ached with a dull, pulsing pain, the ends of them by now crusted over in a mix of blood and ink. It wasn’t too dramatic, but it would be a bother for several days until they healed. 

As she started to remove her armor, she watched the last rays of the sun disappear behind the building of the city. As the light of the sun faded, the lights of the city came to life instead, bright screens and neon signs with advertisements for things Fern had no idea of what they were. 

Fern stared at the armor, neatly packed together next to the bed. She probably wouldn’t wear that in a long time. Who knows if she’d ever be able to go back at all. She swallowed heavily, shaking her head. She needed to try and rest. 

The bed was much softer than she was used to, but it wasn’t unpleasant. The sheets were warm and comfortable. She tried to ignore the heat in her face as suddenly she became uncomfortably aware of Emily's scent that enveloped her. Right. This was her bed. It was to be expected. As she closed her eyes, she tried to focus on the quiet music still playing, and on the inkling's soft breathing. 

“Here you are, Fern, whether you like it or not.” She muttered to herself in the growing darkness. 

“Make the most of it.”

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ayoooo things are finally picking up now! Hope you enjoyed it! Thanks for sticking around this long!


	8. The morning after

The first thing Emily noticed when she opened her eyes was how horribly  _ bright  _ the room was. She had probably forgotten to close the blinds again. Not only that, she seemed to have slept away a good chunk of the day already. Ah well, there wasn’t anything she had to do today anyway. Closing her eyes, she slowly let herself drift off to sleep again.

_ Fern. _

Her eyes shot open, sleep forgotten, the events from the day before rushing back into her memories. No wonder her body still felt sore. It took some effort to heave herself up into a sitting position, hissing as she did so. She was still in her clothes from yesterday, hadn’t bothered to change before falling asleep.

Her gaze wandered over to the bed, only to find Fern watching her. She had pulled her knees up to her face, resting her chin on them as she held eye contact with the inkling. 

They stared at each other for what felt like eternity. Emily suppressed a groan. She hadn’t been awake long enough to deal with this yet. 

“Morning.” She mumbled, brushing a tentacle out of her face.

“Mornin’.” came the quiet reply. Fern looked as tired as Emily still felt.

“Did you sleep at all?” 

The way the octoling averted her green eyes was enough of an answer. Fern merely shrugged, gaze wandering towards the window.

“Not really. A bit, I think. I don’t know, it’s been… not a good night, at least.”

Emily only hummed sympathetically, trying to form a plan for what to do next. She had to stock up on groceries. She had enough funds for rent and groceries. The apartment was dirt cheap, and the only reason she hadn’t moved out yet was because the small space was more than enough for her. Money wasn’t an issue. Helping a traumatised octoling settle into a completely new life was.

Okay, groceries. Clothes too, she couldn’t let Fern walk around in her armor after all. The size difference was far too big for Emily to share any of her clothes. She still had some stuff she…”borrowed” from Milly, that she could give Fern until they got her something proper.

Maybe she should also get something to keep Fern busy, like books, or video games if she could interest the octoling in that. After all, she would be alone when Emily was away during her shifts. She couldn’t exactly stop her work just because she had a house guest now. 

“Okay!” Fern jumped, having settled back into the silence. Emily smiled apologetically

“Sorry. Well, here’s the plan for today: We’ll both freshen up, go out, get some breakfast, cause I couldn’t be arsed to cook even if I had something edible in the fridge.

Then we’ll get you some proper clothes, because if you don’t want people to give you weird looks and notice something about you, you gotta look fresh.

After that we'll get some groceries, because I may live on take-out food, but you shouldn't have to."

She lazily scooted off the couch, giving her body a quick stretch to drive out the soreness from the day before. The sudden stinging in her arm made her flinch. Right. That. She sighed to herself, just another wound to tend to. Behind her, Fern shifted out of the bed, nervously trailing behind her towards the bathroom. 

“Alright, I’ll need to get some things out of here, then I’ll show you how to use the shower and then I’ll leave you to it.”

Fern snorted, “We have showers, you know. I know how to use one.”

“Well yes, but last night you were freaking out over a couch turning into a bed, so I really don’t know what I can trust you with.”

“Oh please, how complicated can it b-” Fern paused, staring at the unfamiliar mechanisms of the shower and, more importantly, the seemingly dozens of bottles lined around it. 

“How many of these things do you need?! Are all Inklings this… this  _ vain _ ?!”

“I am not vain! You need different things to take care of different stuff! Moisturize your skin and shit! Take care of your tentacles! Especially if they’re dyed!” Emily huffed and glared up at Fern, as she was kneeling in front of the cabinet under the sink. Fern caught a glimpse of even more products, though they appeared to be more of medical nature. 

Emily pulled out a roll of bandage, several salves and something that looked like disinfectant and placed them on the counter of the sink.

“Anyway,” she said, pushing past Fern into the shower, “this one’s for how much water you want, this one’s for temperature.” She reached up to the shower head, pushing it upwards. “You can change how high or low it goes, if you feel like it. Don’t put it out of my reach or I’ll bite you, I don’t care if you’re a guest.”

She turned to her bottles, scanning several, eventually grabbing two and pushing each into Ferns hands. 

“This one’s a body wash, self explanatory, and this one’s for your tentacles. And uh, maybe, be careful with that. I don’t know if these things react differently to you since you’re an octoling. So don’t use too much, maybe. I don’t know.”

Emily looked troubled all of a sudden. That wasn’t even something she’d thought about. What if Fern was allergic to these? What if they reacted badly to her skin? What if they hurt her tentacles? 

She desperately wished she knew more about octolings. Maybe she could- No. Never. 

She wouldn’t call him, under no circumstances. 

Not even for Fern.

“Just… be careful. I’ll start doing some research as soon as I can.” she mumbled, quickly leaving the room and closing the door behind her. Another one for the to-do list. So much to do. Taking in an octoling was already mounting up to be much more than she had expected. Too much perhaps, but she couldn't back out anymore. Fern had been through so much, she deserved the best Emily could offer, even if that would never be a lot.

She walked over to her closet and storage space, opening the doors with gusto and eyeing the clothes inside critically. Getting something to wear for Fern was most important right now. Her ears twitched as the sound of running water reached her through the wall.

She hummed to herself, continuously pulling out clothes and critically judging them, until she had put together something that should look decent on the octoling. They could get something nicer for her later.

She quickly opened the door, ignoring Fern’s loud indignant squeak, and tossed the clothes towards the sink, not bothering to check if they actually landed.

That done, she busied herself cleaning up the couch and bed, making things look as pristine as they had when she left it yesterday. It already felt so far away. It had been merely a day.

As she got to the couch, she noticed her phone underneath the blanket. It must have fallen out of her pocket after she'd crashed last night.

She quickly turned it on to check if she'd missed anything important.

_ 23 missed calls from Brooke. _

_ 15 missed calls from Cassy. _

_ 2 missed calls from Revi. _

She turned off her phone again.

Until the screen lit up with  _ another _ incoming call from Brooke. She sighed deeply.

“Heeeey Brooke.”   
“ _ Don’t you dare Hey Brooke me! Where were you?! Do you have any idea how worried we were about you? I couldn’t reach you, Cassy couldn’t, even Revi tried! We had no idea what happened to you _ !” 

“Look, I’m sorry. I lost the time, and when I got home I just crashed immediately.”   
“ _ What the hell were you even doing?! _ ”

“I told you, I visited a friend! It got…. i-it got busy, and things took longer than we expected. I just woke up like twenty minutes, and I only just checked my phone after I had to help her get arou-”

“ _ Wait, she is  _ **_with_ ** _ you _ ?”

“Uh, yea, why?”

“ _ Some- some random girl, that none of us, except you, have ever met. That apparently caused you to be late and “busy”, and made you ignore and forget about all of us. Is just. In your home? _ ”

“Basically.”

There was a long, loaded silence on the other end, which was eventually broken by Brooke inhaling sharply through her nose. Emily could practically picture the way she was pinching the bridge of her nose, trying desperately not to release a slur of cuss words at her. 

_ “...Okay. I’m going to trust your judgement- _ ”   
“You know that’s always a bad idea.”   
“ **_I’m going to trust your judgement on this girl because if I don't pretend that I do, I might strangle you, Emily_ ** **.** ”

“I appreciate it.”

She could hear the other inkling let out an exasperated sigh.

“Y _ ou’re an adult. You can do what you want. Just... stay safe. I’ll let the other know that you’re alright. And Emily? _ ”   
“Yea?”    
“ _ At least buy the girl breakfast if you’re making her stay with you. _ ”

“It’s not like tha-”

Alas, Brooke was already gone. She huffed, face a bright blue hue, and turned around only to find herself face to face with a still slightly drippy but thankfully clothed Fern. 

The octoling was staring at her wide, concerned eyes.

“Is everything okay?”

“Yes. Yes, everything’s just fine.” Emily’s eyes wandered upwards towards Ferns tentacles, who’s wounds seemed to have reopened due to the hot water, slowly leaking a mix of ink and blood down her head.

“Do you need help with that?” Emily asked, gesturing towards her head. “I have some salve that should help. Would you rather put it on yourself, or do you want me to help?”

“You can’t even reach that high.”

“Fine, do it yourself then.”

She grabbed the salve she had taken out earlier and chucked it at the octoling, where it landed square in her face and finally landed unceremoniously on the ground.

Fern picked up the tube while rubbing her face, a soft chuckle on her lips. 

The octoling felt a dull, pulsing ache in her tentacles. She probably wouldn't be able to put it on properly herself. 

Glancing from the tube to Emily, who was busying herself with her phone, she sighed. 

"Emily, I'm sorry. Can you… help me with this?" 

The squid looked up, a smug look coming over her face. "Oh? Now you need me?"

Biting her tongue, Fern sighed in defeat. 

"Yes, please. I'll probably just make a mess. First aid was always one of my worst classes." 

With a smirk on her face, Emily sauntered towards her. There was something mischievous about the girls face. With a quick motion of her hand, Emily pushed her backwards. A yelp escaped Fern as stumbled against the couch, falling backwards onto it. There was a glint in the Inkling’s eyes, and something about the entire situation made Fern feel far more flustered than she should. 

There was a brief silence, filled with a tension Fern could not possibly describe, that was quickly broken by Emily's laughter. She stepped back, giggling as she walked into the kitchen area.

"Usually I do that to girls when they get through the door, and not the morning after!" she called, cackling at her own joke.

When she returned, a few towels in hand, she added, "And usually, it ends in much more fun stuff than this, if I'm being perfectly honest." 

By now Fern really was trying quite hard to ignore her own burning cheeks. 

Emily stifled a giggle at the sight of Fern’s wide-eyed, flushed expression.

"Don't look at me like that; I'm not gonna try anything on you, Fern." 

She unfolded one of the towels as she moved closer, studying Fern's expression with interest. 

"Unless," she mumbled, leaning in dangerously close, gently placing her hand underneath the octolings chin, "you want me to~."

What was certainly only a few seconds until Emily pulled back felt like an eternity to Fern. Her face was burning, heart racing dangerously and she just couldn't understand why. She couldn't dwell on it, ripped out of her thoughts by Emily speaking up again.

"Was that too much? That was too much. I'm sorry." It was Emily's turn to look flushed and embarrassed. "I'm really just teasing you, but I got carried away. I apologise." 

"No. It's fine." Fern did not like how high and small her voice sounded. "I am just… not used to it, is all." 

A huff escaped her, a bit of annoyance at herself flaring up inside of her. "It's not like I can't handle a little teasing from an Inkling." The word had long lost it's bite since their first meeting, now merely used as a tease itself.

"I'll take that as a challenge." 

They shared a chuckle, and Fern realised this was the most relaxed she had felt in… a while. Perhaps that had been Emily's intention, to distract her from the events of yesterday.

Meanwhile, the inkling moved around her, humming to herself as she unfurled the towel in her hand. 

“Alright, tell me if this hurts, okay? I’ll be careful, promise.”

The fabric moved over her injured tentacles, with a gentleness that left Fern quite surprised. Emily seemed more like someone who would rip off someone’s band-aid, without a care for the pain she’d cause. Yet her movements were slow and carefully calculated, wiping off the water, ink and blood and that mixed at their ends. 

It was rather soothing, the octoling relaxing even more as she focused on the inkling’s treatment. So when Emily eventually stopped, Fern almost whined in protest, barely catching herself. She could feel her face flush again. She wondered, silently, what it was about this inkling that made her lose composure since their very meeting. 

“Aaaaalright, this salve miiight burn a tiny little bit - and I hope it will even work on you, but nothing we can do other than try!” Emily looked like she was trying to convince herself more than Fern. 

A little was a severe understatement. Her tentacles felt on fire, no matter how gently Emily rubbed in the salve. A small wince escaped her, but no more. There was no way she was going to show any more weakness right now. 

“It doesn’t burn very long, I promise… Look at it this way, I’ll be suffering the same once I take care of this.” Emily chuckled, showing off the gash on her arm, the edges of her slashed shirt caked with dirt and blood.

Fern stared at it in horror. She hadn’t even noticed that! “Did that happen yesterday?! I’m so- I’m so sorry Emily, this is all my fau-”

A sudden, sharp pain against her forehead cut her off. A sharp cry escaped her, and she looked up at Emily with betrayal - quickly recoiling at the sharpness of her gaze. “Stop. Apologising. This was  _ my _ choice, you didn’t make me help you, you didn’t attack me, you didn’t cut my arm, and you didn’t make me take you in. This was my choice and mine alone. So stop acting like you have any reason to apologise, or I’ll seriously get pissed off.”

Fern felt herself shrink back in her seat, nodding slowly. “I… I’ll try. I still wish I could do more to thank you though.”

“Don’t worry your pretty little head about it for now. Focus on yourself first and foremost, anything else is secondary, alright?” Emily’s expression had softened considerably by now.

“I will try… No, I will. I promise.”

The bright grin that appeared on Emily’s face assured Fern that this was the right choice. 

“Good girl! That’s what I like to hear. Now excuse me for a bit, I am  _ filthy _ .” 

Before Fern could voice her complaints about being patronised, Emily disappeared into the bathroom.


	9. Welcome to Inkopolis

Once freshened up and clean, Emily took to the task of treating her own wound. She’d taken the time in the shower to wash out most of the dirt from her arm, now working at dressing the wound. The pain of the disinfectant barely registered to her anymore, all too used to the routine by now. She had gotten quite skilled at taking care of her injuries since she started work at Grizzcos. Jacob taught her the basics, back when she’d always get into fights, but by now she could easily take care of the things that weren’t worth a visit to one of Grizzco’s own medical professionals. Seemed to be good luck that quite a few doctors around Inkopolis were willing to look the other way, if the price was right. 

Although Emily rarely took advantage of the service, the doctors were available even outside of Salmon related injuries and illnesses. Mr. Grizz liked to keep his happy little workers healthy after all, because healthy workers brought in a lot more money and were a lot less likely to question his business practices. The higher your rank, the better the treatment you had access to was. After all, no one really wanted to explain at a hospital where the bitemarks came from.

Emily huffed quietly, as she tried to properly wrap the bandage around her arm. It was too high up for her to properly grasp and wrap it. No matter how she twisted both her body and arms, there just seemed to be no way for her to do this alone. 

A growl of frustration escaped her before she pulled open the door, bandage in hand. 

Fern’s head whipped around, mouth open to ask a question that died on her tongue as she stared at Emily. 

The Inkling looked down at herself. A tank top and shorts hid anything that would be worth staring at.

“What? I’m covered. I’m not putting on anything decent just for you in my own home.”

She threw the bandage towards Fern, who barely managed to catch it. The couch groaned underneath her as she let herself fall onto it, arm outstretched towards Fern. “I need your help. Just wrap it tight, I can’t do it myself.” 

Noting the scowl on Emily’s face, Fern decided not to argue, and got to her task at hand.

“I’ve been meaning to ask,” the octoling tried to break the tense silence between them, “you have quite a lot of medical supplies I noticed. Is that normal for inklings? Is it to do with your sport you’ve told me about?”

Emily shifted uncomfortably, trying to come up with a good explanation. She could just lie and say yes, but that was far too easily discovered. If she ever took Fern to a turf war, she’d know immediately that injuries rarely happened.

“I need them for… work.”

“You mention it often, but I don’t actually know what you do. What exactly is it?”

Damn nosy octoling. She knew that Fern was just trying to hold a conversation, but ‘So what do you do for work?’ was always an awkward question when the answer was ‘Getting violently mauled by fish for some shiny eggs’. Ah, whatever, it’s not like Fern would know.

“Uhh, well, have you ever heard of Salmonids?”

Ohhh no, she did  _ not _ like how serious Fern’s expression just grew.

“Of course I have. The octarians have been trading with them regularly, even after Octavio’s fall. Apparently they needed our technology to fight off some ‘egg-stealing menace’. My rank wasn’t high enough to be allowed all the information concerning the matter, but I was present a few times as a guard.” The octoling shuddered, finishing the bandaging and using the large band-aid Emily offered her to secure the fabric. “I know I treated you, I mean, inklings in general, unfairly when we first met.” Fern averted her eyes, a look of shame falling over her face. “You’ve proven me wrong many times already, and I must apologise for that. But, those Salmonids? They’re… crazy. Nothing can make me change my mind on that. I’ve seen their eyes Emily, and they’re just… vicious. Unhinged. I’m surprised they were even able to communicate with us. I can’t possibly imagine who would willingly fight these things.” The look on her face had grown distant, almost puzzled, before her eyes returned to Emily. 

“Why do you ask?”

Emily stared on wide-eyed, frantically racking her brain to come up with a reply that wouldn’t make everything go to shit right then and there. 

“I- Well. Now this is kinda funny, I'm sure you'll laugh too," she forced a giggle out of herself, and to her credit, it almost sounded convincing.

"You see I kind of. Fight salmonids. For a living." 

The sounds from the radio sounded a lot louder in the silence. Fern was staring at her like she'd grown a second head. 

"You  _ what _ ?" 

"Look, it's really not that bad-" 

"So you inklings are stealing their eggs?! What for? Why would you risk your life like this?!" 

"It pays well-"

"There must be other ways to make money! Better ways! Without fighting those creatures! What do you need the eggs for, anyway?!"

"I don't know-!"

" _ You don't know? _ "

"Look, Mr. Grizz doesn't ask us questions, and we don't ask him. We just splat the salmonids and bring him the eggs. That's all we know, that's all we do, that's all we get paid for. Nobody there cares enough to ask anyway." 

There was another long silence between them. This time less tense, but much, much heavier. Finally Fern sighed, a hand trying to go through her hair out of habit only to pull back with evident frustration.

"I don't like this." She muttered, settling on leaning her head in her hands. "But it's not like I can stop you. Just… be careful please. That's all I can say. I'll be here if you need someone to help you with injuries." She nodded towards Emily's arm for emphasis.

"Don't worry, I can take care of myself. And I have a good team that has my back. I'll be fine! Now," she said, rising from her seat on the couch and walking towards her closet. "The day’s still young, and we got lots to do. You need new clothes and the fridge is empty, after all. Not to mention you got all of Inkopolis to see." 

“Are you sure it will be okay for me to just go out? What if someone recognises that I’m an octoling? I know you said most Inklings won’t know, but  _ you _ know, how many more are there? People who are not as kind as you?”

“Okay first of all don’t call me kind, I refuse to be subjected to this kind of slander. Second of all, if anyone tries to start shit, they can take it up with me. Also, give me just a moment.”

Emily seemed to almost disappear inside of the closet, noisily rummaging through its contents.

“Aha! Catch!”

Something green flew through the air, landing right in Fern’s face with an almost scary accuracy. When she had freed her vision from the fabric, she just caught Emily trying to hide her grin before the inkling turned back to her task at hand.

Fern grumbled without bite and inspected the weapon she had been attacked with oh so viciously. It appeared to be a rather large hat, the fabric soft on her fingers. 

“That’ll hide your tentacles, which are probably the biggest concern. For your masks… ehhh I don’t think anyone will notice that. If somebody points it out, we’ll just get you glasses or use make-up. Everything will be okay, I promise.”

“What about the New Squidbeak Splatoon? Will they be fooled that easily?”

Emily, who was in the middle of pulling out a black hoodie with a large golden crown emblazoned on it, slowed down in her motion, looking at Fern with confusion written all over her face.

“What the fuck is the New Squid- something something?”

“The… The new Squidbeak Splatoon? The guys who took back the Great Zapfish two years ago? Y’know, heroes of the inklings? Scourge of the octolings? Something like that?”

The blank stare she received was answer enough.

“What the hell is going on with you inklings.”

“Wish I knew, Fern.”

Emily quickly slipped on the hoodie and a simple pair of jeans. As she walked past Fern, she quickly snatched the beanie out of her hand, only to haphazardly place it on her head, quickly dancing out of reach before Fern had any way to retaliate.

“Up, up! Time’s a wastin! We’ve got plenty to do and plenty to see!”

* * *

Outside, they were greeted by a freezing breeze of air whipping around them. Fern could feel herself shudder at the sudden temperature drop compared to the inside of the apartment complex. At least Emily had a jacket to keep herself warm. The octoling adjusted the beanie on top of her tentacles carefully, making sure they were all hidden. The sight of their mutilation would shock more inklings than their shape, Emily had said. Best not to draw attention to them in any way. 

She didn’t have much time to complain about it all, already being dragged along by the inkling, who was chattering away cheerfully. Fern merely listened, not having much to add to the conversation aside from occasional questions or a thoughtful hum. 

Around them, inklings and other former sea life mingled, each one a different colour, a different outfit, a completely different person with a completely different life than either of them. 

In the daylight, the building seemed even more impressive, many of them proudly displaying their brightly coloured advertisements.

Distracted by the completely new sights as she was, she barely registered that they seemed to have arrived at their destination until they stopped abruptly.

“Man, if just the walk here was enough to impress you this much, I can’t wait to see your reactions to the real sights around here!”

Emily laughed brightly, already pulling at her arm again. 

“Welcome to Inkopolis Square, anyway! Heart of the city, the place where all the new squids come to prove they’re the best on the turf, or to just the best when it comes to fashion.”

Fern’s eyes went wide at the sight of the giant tower standing proudly above the whole plaza, littered with bright signs, advertisements, and a big TV that mostly seemed to loop a few clips of ads and announcements.

“Those shops up there are all for Turf gear, but we’re not going turfing, so we’re not going there for now. Though, maybe we’ll pay Sheldon a visit, crab guy’s always fun to talk to.”

  
  


Fern wasn’t sure for how long she was trying on t-shirts and hoodies and sweaters and pants and shorts - point was, they’d been at it for a while before Emily had been satisfied with the assortment of clothes she had bought for Fern. 

“You really don’t have to buy all of these - I feel terrible that you spent so much money on me.”

“I’m an adult, and I can spend however I want, and if I want to splurge on my friends, that is my gods given right to do so!” The inkling squawked cheerily, walking up ahead of her out of the store, large bags hanging from her arms.

The inkling only walked for a few steps before she froze mid-step, eyes focused on something near the tower. Fern followed her gaze, wondering what had caught the inkling by surprise. She couldn’t make out anything in particular, only a few inklings lingering around the tower. 

Then her eyes were drawn to an almost ridiculously tall inkling that was just walking away from one of the stores, and Fern faintly remembered that Emily had pointed it out as a shop for weapons. 

The inkling was briefly looking up at the tower, expression hidden behind her broad, yellow tentacles that almost dragged on the ground from how long they were.

Emily was already stepping towards her when the tall inkling turned towards them, surprise on her face when her eyes caught on the short girl.

Fern followed stiffly, still wary of the inklings around her and afraid to be caught as an octoling. Emily didn’t seem to share her worries in the slightest, cheerfully waving to the other inkling.

They finally reached each other, Emily bouncing on her heels, while the other girl stood loose and slack, like the mere act of standing was an effort. Something about the girl just looked  _ tired _ . Like she was about to fall asleep on her feet. Still, there was a soft smile on her face, a certain fondness to her eyes as she greeted Emily. Fern didn’t know, or at least didn’t want to think about why she disliked that expression so much.

“Yo, Em. You doing okay? Revi called last night, asking if I know where you are. Something about your teammate being a terror because of it?”

Emily scoffed and rolled her eyes, giving a shrug. 

“Brooke’s just too worried. I forgot to shoot her a text that I got home, cause I was…” she hesitated, glancing at Fern. “Busy.”

The girl followed her eyes, barely sparing Fern a glance. She was about to say something, when she suddenly froze, looking back at Fern, staring at the octoling with wide eyes. 

There was a brief, tense silence that felt like it stretched forever,

“Do I want to know?”

Emily laughed, though it was too bright and shrill to be genuine, more fueled by her nervousness. 

“No. No, you don’t.”

“Alright, fine by me.” The girl shrugged, her expression unreadable.

“Anyway, that’s not important anyway. What are you doing around Deca Tower? I didn’t think I’d ever see you around here.”

“Oh, you know, just helping Sheldon around the shop for some pocket money. He’s keeping an eye and ear out for me so I can hopefully get a real job soon.”

"I hope you'll find something soon. Would be a waste of your muscles if ya didn't." 

Emily laughed, Milly chuckled with a slight blush dusting her cheeks, and Fern felt an odd discomfort in her stomach. She had no time to wonder about the feeling, all traces of it dissipating when Emily grabbed her hand. 

“Well, nice having a chat with ya Mills, but we still got stuff to do today, and I’m sure Fern’s getting real tired of having me drag her around all day long.”

Milly hummed, throwing Fern another long look, and the octoling felt herself squirm under her unreadable expression. The tall inkling merely smiled though.

“Yea, I can imagine, it’s hard keeping up with you, Emily. I gotta get home anyway, Jacob really wants me to watch this new show with him, and he’ll get up my ass if I don’t get home quick. See you two around then!”

The inklings both cheerfully waved each other goodbye, but before Fern could finish her own awkward goodbye, she was already being dragged away.

* * *

Fern hadn’t realised how long they’d been out, until she noticed the sun slowly setting beyond the horizon. As the sky was painted in a plethora of colours, slowly but surely being overtaken by the deep blue of the night, they started to head back towards Emily’s apartment.

“Alright, one last stop and then we’ll go home! It’ll be quick, I promise!”

Fern was getting used to being dragged through the streets of the city. She stumbled a bit, utterly exhausted from the day of walking around and seeing so many new things and meeting new people, on top of the lack of sleep and the events from the day before. It seemed so unbelievable, that just yesterday she woke up in her bed at the octarian headquarters, and now she was in the city of Inkopolis, a place most octolings only dreamed of, mingling with the inklings like she was one of them. 

She followed Emily into a small looking store, its cold bright light emphasized by the growing darkness outside. 

“Know anything in particular you wanna eat?” The inkling asked, turning towards the taller girl. “Choose whatever strikes your fancy, and I’ll get it for you. Just have a look around, I’ll get some other stuff, just take your time!”

And suddenly, Fern was alone, already missing Emily’s guiding hand. She shook her head defiantly at her helplessness. She wasn’t a lost child! She was an adult who was fine with being alone for a minute or two!

Her eyes turned to the shelves, full of brightly packaged food and snacks. Some of the words on them were unfamiliar to her, despite her good grasp on the inkling language.They were required to learn it, in case they came upon the opportunity to seize information about them. That was, until Octavio’s capture. Since then, the octolings’ focus had been on rebuilding their society without his tyrannical tentacles looming over them, but evidently the higher ups had had other plans. 

Fern sighed. She was getting distracted again. She wandered along the shelves, grabbing a few packages  that caught her eye as she made her way through. Eventually she found herself at a large counter, a bored looking woman leaning on it. When the woman’s eyes caught sight of her, she suddenly straightened up, her expression replaced with a bright smile that didn’t reach her eyes.

“Welcome Miss! Did you find everything? Anything I can help you with?” 

Before Fern could reply, she saw Emily making her way towards them with a large bag filled to the brim. “Fern! There you are, I’ve been looking all over!”

“Oh, you’re with her.” Muttered the inkling at the counter, and immediately went back to her slumped position. 

“Can’t believe you’re the first customer this shift, like, I just got here. At least give me an hour or two of mercy before you come here.”

“Aww, Rosemary, I know I’m your favourite customer!”

“Don’t call me that, and you are most  _ certainly _ not.”

“Oh? Who’s your favourite then?”

“Every customer that gets out of here as fast as possible. Now hurry up, I’m not getting paid to chat with you.”

“The privilege of talking to me is of immeasurable worth, Ry.”

“I would pay you to shut up if I could.”

  
Fern followed the interaction with confusion. So many of Emily’s interactions appeared to be hostile, yet no one seemed truly angry with her. Even this inkling, who appeared to be the grumpiest one they’d met so far, had a smile playing around the edges of her mouth. Perhaps this was just a normal thing between inklings? They really were so strange.

As they talked, the girl - Rosemary? Ry? She didn’t seem to like the first name - took each of their items, pulling them across the counter, and Fern watched with fascination as the numbers on a nearby display grew bigger each time. 

Eventually Emily pulled out a crumpled note out of her purse, handed it over to Ry and received a few coins in return . She quickly grabbed all their purchases, bid farewell to the inkling, and pulled Fern along once again. 

Once outside again, they were hit with the same chilly wind that had greeted them in the morning, although even colder, now that the sun was gone. 

“So how was your first day as a citizen of Inkopolis?”

The words hit Fern like a brick, the sudden realisation that she was really here, that she really was living here now, for quite a while probably.

“It was…a lot. But in a good way.” She smiled at the inkling. “Thank you, Emily. For everything you’ve done for me so far. Saving me, taking me in, buying clothes for me… I’ll never be able to repay you enough.”

Emily's cheek took on a soft blue colour in the light of the streetlight. “Don’t make such a big deal of it. I’m just trying to do what’s right for once.”

“Well, I am honoured and grateful that you’re doing the right thing for me then.”

“You’re such a sap. Let’s just go home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A big thanks to by beta reader Addision Noxy, whose stories you should totally check out if you haven't, and as always thank you for reading.


	10. Old ghosts, new friends

It had been a week now since Fern had come to Inkopolis, and the octoling was slowly starting to settle into this new normal. The apartment was becoming a little more familiar every day. The radio played a soft melody, some inkling song Fern didn’t recognise at all. To be fair, the only inkling song she truly knew was the Calamari Inkantation. Perhaps she could ask Emily about it sometime, whether there was a way to listen to it again.

She hadn’t heard the song in the two years, ever since Agent Three took down Octavio and changed the Octarian society forever. Many octolings defected, leaving for the surface, while most remained underground, setting their determination on rebuilding themselves. 

Even the octolings disillusioned with the propaganda hadn’t realised how deeply rooted their upbringing was in them. That even those who believed to see past what they learned from birth on, still didn’t realise that the way they had lived wasn’t  _ normal _ , wasn’t  _ right _ . 

But, even after being freed, many octolings had still held resentment towards inklings, now rather blaming them for letting them rot with a tyrant for a hundred years. Fern felt ashamed that she had once almost proudly counted herself among them.

Emily hummed along to the music as she moved about, preparing dinner for the two of them. The inkling had seemed so excited about the opportunity to treat Fern to her ‘very first surface dinner’ when she had cooked for her the first time. “I haven’t cooked for anyone but myself in a while, and that’s no fun!”

Fern wondered where Emily just took all this energy from, always cheerful and bright. The noises of the city’s nightlife, let in by the open window, drowned out the music every now and then. Fern thought that it made everything far too cold, but Emily had insisted that they should open them to let out the steam from cooking. Perhaps she was right about that, but it didn’t change that it was far too cold for Fern! She really couldn’t understand how Emily could stand it at all, even with her thick hoodie. It wasn’t fair at all.

She was ripped out of her musings by a flurry of inkling curses, peppered with words that Fern hadn’t even ever heard of before - she assumed they were insults as well. 

“What’s wrong?” she asked, eyeing the inkling curiously. 

Emily stared at her phone, a deep scowl on her face. Her good mood seemed all but evaporated, chased away by whatever she just saw. 

“I have to work tomorrow.”

She leaned against the table, not looking at Fern.

“I don’t want to just leave you alone, but I can’t ditch the team either.”

Fern watched her bite her lip, foot tapping nervously as she stared at the ceiling, deep in thought. 

“If it’s a good shift it won’t be too long, if I really focus on collecting the eggs…” she looked back on her phone, eyes flying over the information provided. 

“I don’t mind you leaving for work, Emily.”

Emily looked up at her in surprise, her train of thought interrupted.

“I really wish you wouldn’t go out to fight those salmonids, but I trust you to take care of yourself. But you don’t have to worry about me, I’ll be fine alone for a bit. Maybe I can even visit Inkopolis a little…”

For a moment, Emily seemed unconvinced, but then sighed in relief. 

“Okay, if you say you’ll be fine, I’ll believe you. I can give you some money, and I’ll write down my number and address if you get lost, I might still have an old phone lying around that you can use. And I’ll give you my friends’ numbers too, you met Milly yesterday, and I told you about Jacob, he’s super cool! He’ll help you if you call him! Now what else…”

A laugh escaped the octoling, even if she was trying to hide it, and it was made even harder by the pout that Emily looked at her with. 

“What?! I’m trying to help!”

“I know, I know, and I appreciate it! But you really don’t have to worry so much about me. I’ll be fine, Emily.”

“I’m not worried about  _ you _ , it’s just that if something happens to you, I’m the one who has to clean up the mess!”

“It’s cute, how hard you try to convince everyone that you don’t care about them.”

For a moment, Emily stared, fury in her eyes and a blush all over her face. She opened her mouth, as if to retaliate, but then merely made a noise of indignation and turned back to the food she was cooking. Fern didn’t try to hide her laugh anymore this time.

* * *

When Fern woke up come morning, Emily was already gone. The blanket on the pullout couch was neatly folded up again. Had Fern really slept so deep that she hadn’t even heard Emily getting ready and leaving at all? How late was it, anyway? 

Her eyes searched the walls for the clock near the entryway. 8:40. She was late to waking up. Back home, she would be long awake by now, having completed her workout, going after whatever tasks she was assigned that day. 

Her heart felt heavy. She wondered how things were now, down in the valley. They had made so much progress, slowly working through generations of indoctrination and propaganda against the inklings who had kept them underground. There had been hope that at some point, maybe they could return to the surface, offer the inklings peace, bury the past between them.

And then Octavio came back, and threw it all away in an instant, for his own selfish plans of revenge. 

How did this happen? There had still been a few octolings stubbornly loyal to their leader, but few had paid them any mind. Octavio was guarded by the New Squidbeak Splatoon, and no one was a match for any of their members. A single inkling had decimated most of their army. Fern herself had found herself in a brief match with her only once. She had been splatted too quickly to even react. How did they get him out?

She sighed and shook her head. Emily would probably scold her about how she was overthinking everything, and that she had to focus on the here and now, and that there was nothing she could do. 

Was there really? Agent Three had done it by herself, who said that Fern couldn’t take on all of the octolings by herself?

Oh, what was she thinking. She wasn’t a match for Three, and certainly not the people she grew up and trained with.

Too many thoughts, too little answers. There was no use in driving herself mad with them. She rose from the bed, making her way over to the kitchen. Perhaps breakfast would part the clouds in her mind. When she entered the small space, she noticed quite a few things, carefully arranged on the table. A phone, a small pouch that looked very full, and a note on top of it. Fern grabbed the note, curious what Emily had written.

_ Sorry I had to leave so early! Left you some money in the pouch, and the phone is fully charged and ready to go! You’re smart, you’ll figure that thing out! It got Milly’s and Jacob’s numbers saved, an app for a map, some other stuff you might need, but you’ll be fine if you want to go out! _

_ Take what you want out of the fridge, or heat up the leftovers from yesterday if you want! Anyone who says that spaghetti can’t be breakfast is a coward! _

_ Hope you’ll have a good day, see you later! _

Fern smiled to herself. Emily really tried to come off as someone rough and uncaring, but it was laughably easy to see through her facade.

The octoling opted to make herself two sandwiches, because spaghetti was  _ not _ for breakfast and if that made her a coward, so be it.

* * *

Two hours later, she found herself back in the Inkopolis Square. She was surprised at how easily she found it, but then again, the giant tower in the middle was very hard to miss. Emily told her that most of the time, the zapfish would rest there, wrapped around the tower and fueling the city with its electricity.

Something inside of her wanted to apologise to the big fish, on behalf of the octolings, whenever she would get the opportunity to see it. Perhaps it was silly, but she felt the creature deserved it, after what it had been put through.

“Hi there!”

Fern jumped away, a yelp escaping her. She’d been so distracted by the creature that she hadn’t even noticed the inkling sneaking up on her. How careless of her. She knew better than to let her guard down.

“Oh, I’m so sorry for scaring you! I really didn’t mean to. You’re Emily’s friend, right? We met the other day.”

Fern, having caught her bearings by now, realised that before her stood the tall girl from yesterday, Milly. Her broad yellow tentacles swayed around her, reaching just past her shoulders, and Fern wondered if they weren’t constantly in her way.

“Uh… Yes? I’m… Yea, I’m Emily’s friend.”

“Good, good! I just saw you wandering around out here, and I’m assuming that you’re new around here, so I thought I could show you around here a little! Emily did text me that you might need a little help while she’s gone, and since I’m all finished up at the store for today, I thought it’d be the perfect opportunity to help you!”

The girl's smile was kind, but there was something… pointed in her gaze. Fern wasn’t sure if going with her was really a good idea, but then again, Emily seemed to really trust her.

“...Alright. Yea I’m new here, it would probably be for the best.”

“Great! Come along then!”

Milly was a lot less chatty than Emily, but still kept a calm conversation along their way. While she pointed out sights, shops, and anything really she found of note, Fern noticed that the farther they went, the less populated the area became.

After a few minutes of walking, the girl's smile faded, replaced with a much more serious expression.

“Okay, look, we’re far enough.” She turned to Fern, studying her face. “You’re an octoling, aren’t you?”

Fern felt her blood run cold. “I- what? How did you get that idea?”

The inkling snickered, shaking her head. “Don’t act all shocked. You should know by now that Emily’s kind of obsessed with all the Great Turf War stuff and octolings, thanks to her old man. You can’t really escape it when you hang out with either of them.” There was a beat of silence, the information slowly sinking in for Fern. Milly shrugged, her serious expression replaced with one that resembled boredom more.

“Anyway, don’t worry, it’s cool, okay? I just wanted you to know that you don’t have to stress about it with me.” 

“Emily said no one would know…”

“Well, most squids don’t. We’re just kind of an… exception. The troubles of being friends with history nerds. Anyway, I don’t think I caught your name yesterday?”

“It’s Fern.”

Milly stared at her for a moment, lips twitching, before she broke into a snicker.

“Of course. Of course, you’re Fern. What did I expect? Yea, she told us about you. Welcome to Inkopolis then, Fern.”

She turned abruptly, walking back towards the way they came from.

“Anyway, there’s still a lot to see! Inkopolis is big, and the day is short. Let’s go.”

“So, you’re friends with Emily?”

“Mhm, have been foooor… almost ten years. Me, her, an’ Jacob, I’ll introduce him to you later, it’s been just the three of us for a pretty long time.”

“She told me a lot about you. She seems to think highly of both of you.”

“Aye, ain’t that nice to hear! She’d never admit that to us. Not that she has to, we know the little bastard loves us.”

“I’m still a bit confused, how you all know so much about octolings…”

“Ah, well,” Milly suddenly looked uncomfortable, scratching her cheek as she tried to think of what to say. 

“Y’see, I said it’s because of her old man, right? He’s like, this professor for history, n’ stuff, and his focus is all on The Great Turf War, and octoling culture, and all that stuff. And he rubbed that all off on Emily, and since we hung out with her all the time, we involuntarily learned a lot about it all.” A shadow briefly flickered over her face, but she merely shrugged. “Don’t ask her about it though, and especially not her father. Some… stuff, happened, and they don’t talk anymore, and she gets real pissed if you bring it up. So you didn’t hear this from me, alright?”

Fern only nodded, trying to process the information as she walked along in silence. It gave her a lot to think about. This whole conversation had really shown her that she barely knew anything about Emily so far. She trusted the inkling, but now she wondered if those feelings were even mutual. 

She wasn’t allowed to dwell on these thoughts, as Milly announced “We’re here!”, wherever here even was. 

They found themselves in a large street, many buildings and stores standing tight together, as if they were each trying to push each other out to take over more space.

Milly appeared to be waving to someone, and as Fern scanned the area, she took note of an inkling boy walking towards them. Some of his long purple tentacles were tied up into a ponytail that hung loosely over his shoulder, while the rest seemed to be styled into one larger tentacle that fell down the left side of his face. 

He smiled as he reached them, quickly greeting Milly, before his curious gaze turned towards Fern.

“And who’s this? Don’t think I’ve seen you around.”

“This is Fern.” Milly stated before the octoling could form a reply herself. 

The boys expression briefly fell into shock, eyes wide. He caught himself fast, going back to his smile, although it seemed far more forced this time.

“Oh, Fern! Yes! Emily has actually told us a lot about you!” His eyes seemed to bore into hers intensely, his smile growing far too wide to be genuine. 

“ _ A lot. _ ”

If Fern still had her longer tentacles, they would have wiggled nervously about now. She assumed that this was his way of telling her that he was well aware of her secret.

“Stop being a weirdo, dude. Fern’s cool, and I’m sure Emily had a good reason to bring her here. She’s reckless, but she isn’t totally stupid.” 

The two glared at each other for a few heartbeats, like a silent communication going on between the two, until the boy sighed and shook his head, seemingly resigned. 

“Fine. I’ll trust her judgement.” He turned to Fern again. “Sorry about that. I… didn’t expect to meet you, here, or anytime this soon. Emily does talk about you often.” He smiled, genuinely this time, and his eyes held warmth to them. “She seems very fond of you, so I’m sure we’ll get along great too!” He reached out his hand. “I’m Jacob, by the way.”

Fern tentatively shook his hand, noting how soft his grip was. He didn’t really seem to be a fighter, unlike Milly or Emily. What a strange bunch this little group was, so different, yet they all ended up as friends. 

“It’s nice to meet you. Emily has been talking about you, too. I’ve heard many good things.” 

His smile seemed to brighten just a little more.

“Well,” Milly said, seeming restless with how she bounced from one leg to the other, “how about we grab a bite to eat? We can talk more over some food, I don’t like standing around all in the open like this.”

The other two chimed in their agreement, and the group went off to find food.

* * *

Evening was already fast approaching by the time the group returned to the square, right on time it seemed, as Emily just emerged from a small alleyway.

The inkling looked exhausted, feet scuffling across the ground. Her eyes were mostly focused on the ground in front of her. She didn’t notice the group of her friends until Milly shouted for her attention across the square, making several people stop and turn to their direction. Emily herself shot up and froze, eyes wide, before she made her way over with a bright smile on her face.

“What are you guys all doing here?” she asked once she’d reach them.

“Well, I ran into Fern here after I was done helping Sheldon for the day, so I took her for a little trip around the city, and then we picked up Jacob after his shift was done, and then came here, hoping to catch you. And look at that, we did!”

“You sure did.” Emily’s voice sounded a little strained to Fern, but neither of the other inklings seemed to catch it.

“How about we walk you two home? Hang out at your place?” 

There was almost something akin to panic flickering in Emily’s eyes, but before the inkling could reply, Fern chimed in.

“I-I’m sorry, but, today has been a lot for me already, and I’d rather just go home with Emily for now. I apologise. Perhaps at another time?”

The two inklings shared a glance between them. Then, Jacob nodded with a smile, and Milly did the shrug that seemed to be typical for her. 

“Eh, sure, whatevs. I’m always available anyway, and I’m sure Jacob can find some time after work.”

The boy nodded, the smile ever present on his face. “Sure, we’ll work something out soon. Have a good evening you two!” 

Once the two had left and Emily and Fern had started on their trek home, Emily let out a long sigh, shoulders deflating. The brightness left her face.

“Thanks for that. Don’t me wrong, I love those two, I just… Can’t deal with them today.”

“Was work bad today?”

Emily snorted, a humorless giggle escaping her. 

“It’s Grizzco’s. There’s no good days to begin with, only not-so-bad days.”

Fern felt her chest tighten when she looked at Emily’s face. Her expression, her hunched over pose, the whole inkling looked like she had been swapped out with a different person. 

Emily caught her staring and rolled her eyes, a snort escaping her. 

“Don’t give me that look, I’m fine. Just… tired. Let’s go home and make something to eat, alright?”

_________________________________________________________________

“Fern seems nice.” Jacob said quietly as they walked. Milly merely hummed in agreement. 

“We should do our best to make her feel welcome.”

“I don’t know if this is anything we should get mixed up in, to be honest.”

“Oh come on, since when do you have a problem with things that could end badly?”

“I don’t. I’m just… worried for Emily. I don’t want her getting into trouble.”

“Maybe you should trust her a little more to take care of herself.”

“Maybe you trust her too much.”

The two inklings glared at each other for a few heartbeats, before Milly sighed and shook her head. “Whatever. Let’s just hope it’ll be fine.”

They walked for a while in tense silence, Jacob fumbling nervously to find something to say.

“Hey, you know, I haven’t seen the Zapfish in a few days. You’re in the square more than me, have you seen anything?”

Milly pondered for a moment, brows knitted. “Now that you mention it I haven’t.” She shrugged. “He probably took off for a flight a few days ago, he does that sometimes.”

Jacob hummed, nodding to himself. 

“Well, let’s hope he comes back soon.”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jacob and Milly are characters that I adore, and I'm sad I have to admit that they probably won't get enough attention in this fic. Emily is and always will be the attention whore around here.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you again for reading this far! At this point I'd like to shamelessly plug my friends discord server, which is heavily focused on the headcanons, writing, and the general creative part of the Splatoon fandom! https://discord.gg/3hhcMnT


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